manicm said:
Oh, wiki again. I've seen that list - and without Stevie Wonder none of them would be around including MJ.
Not to be argumentative, but that's not necessarily true: Stevie started his career in 1962 and MJ started in 1964, so they were more contemporaries than really a clear case of one inspiring the other... I suspect they both drew some amount of inspiration from the works of each other and, of course, those who came before them.
Anyway, I think we've found the source of our disagreement. I don't limit the term "influence" to the person who is credited with creating a genre... If we go by that then by default the most infuential recording must be the very first recording, as everything stems from that... Even if no modern artist has heard that first recording...
If I said I was inspired to become a lawyer because my dad is a lawyer, would we argue that my dad didn't influence me and it was really the first lawyer in history, who influenced me?
Anyway, I guess we can just agree to disagree on the term influence in this context. But IMO MJ is easily one of the most influential artists and Thriller would be my pick for my influential recording.