Sid Vicious actually was very important to punk rock, but only in the image department.
I love The Sex Pistols, but Frank Zappa said it best. "The story of punk, a guy in England, and it always has to do with some guy in england, a guy in England who had a boutique was smart enough to know that no musical trend has ever survived unless you could dress up to it. All the important musical trends were accompanied by clothing trends to go along with the music, so he was going to cut right through to the heart of the matter and forget about the music and start with the clothes, so he got some guys and he stuck some safety pins in their face and put some funny clothes on them and said here take these instruments, you are now The Sex Pistols."
But its still stupid to criticize a band because image played a big part in their popularity. Image has always been a important part in marketing music and it still is.
But it has nothing to do with the music itself, sorry Urban.
Anywho. The musicians who inspire me the most.
Robert Fripp - One of the most original guitarists around, leader of the worlds greatest prog band, dueted with Eno on classic albums like
Another Green World and
Here Come the Warm Jets, played on Bowie's
Heroes and Van Der Graaf Genators
Pawn Hearts, easly one of the best back catelogs of any musician.
Frank Zappa - Brilliant guitarist, songwriter, composer, producer, filmmaker, satirist, effective anti-censorship activist. A f*cking polymath.
Miles Davis - I prefer his cool period over his fusion stuff, just by a tad.
Brian Eno - Played on Roxy Musics first two (and best) albums, played on Bowies classic
Low and produced two of my all time favorite albums, Talking Heads
Remain In Light and U2s
Joshua Tree. His solo stuff aint bad either.
Tony Levin - Fun fact, he has played bass on every song ever made since 1971, every single one.
Adrian Belew - Another hard working session man who dosen't get enough props.
Jimi Hendrix - Errr... Sorry, I've got nothing.
Rick Wakeman - Innovator of the rock opera ice show. =)
Bjork - I'm still waiting for Volta to come out. With great impatience.
David Bowie - The Rock N Roll chameleon.
Todd Rundgren - The self proclaimed whitest musician of all time.
Ian Anderson - Nothing says Rock N Roll more than extended Flute solos and lyrics about Jesus.
DJ Shadow - Anyone who samples artists as diverse as A Tribe Called Quest and Foreigner and pulls it off deserves a tip of the hat.
Tom Waits - I can immitate his voice, but not without having to take a cough drop afterwards.
Billy Corgan - However I still wont accept
Zeitgeist as being a true Pumpkins album if James Iha isn't involved.
Everyone in The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Who - &^*&^&*^879678968796^&*()
Steve Howe - Yes
Chris Squire - Yes
Bill Bruford - Yes
and King Crimson
Jonny Greenworld - The only guy in history to have suffered from repetitive strain injury and not be a total loser.
Flea - The guy that inspired me to take up bass, some day I hope to be as good as him, but for now I will have to settle being almost as good as Sid Vicious.
Bootsy Collins - Inspired Flea to inspire me to take up bass.
Kurt Cobain - Oh wait, he sux, l0lzzzerz. Hez cant pley geetar, listen to some Petrucci d000ds.
Too many others to name.