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Back in 2004, Rolling Stone assembled an expert panel of musicians, industry figures and critics to pick the 50 greatest artists of all time. We called these artists "The Immortals." A year later, our panelists expanded the roster to 100 all-time great artists, which you can read right here. But time stands still for no list, and when we look around us today we see a whole galaxy of other stars who belong in the Immortals conversation. Click through for 14 currently active (or relatively recently defunct) artists who we think will stand the test of time – the kind of acts whose names we wouldn't be surprised to see on a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot at some point down the road when they become eligible.
Meet the New Immortals.
TAYLOR SWIFT
KANYE WEST
Back in 2000, when Kanye West was an up-and-coming producer from Chicago with a name that people kept mispronouncing (if they knew it at all), virtually no one expected him to become a superstar. No one, that is, except Kanye West. He pursued his vision until it became a reality – placing several beats on Jay-Z's 2001 LP The Blueprint, then stepping into the spotlight with his brilliant debut, 2004's The College Dropout. He could have settled into a comfortable career from there, but Kanye has never been one to settle. His music got even more ambitious with each release, even as his lyrics got more searingly honest, peaking with 2010's complicated masterpiece, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Once he was an outsider; today, it's just about impossible to imagine our world without him.
LADY GAGA
In 2006, 20-year-old NYU dropout Stefani Angelina Germanotta changed her name to Lady Gaga and began her plot to take over the world. It only took about three years. In that time, she brought her Madonna-inspired dance songs from downtown Manhattan's cramped Bitter End to a multiple-night stand at Madison Square Garden. It was easy to dismiss her first big single, "Just Dance," as a pop trifle – but the hits kept coming at a dizzying pace ("Poker Face," "Paparazzi," "Bad Romance," "Edge of Glory"), each one more impressive than the last. Gaga also understands the 24/7 media culture better than any of her peers: she treats the whole world as a stage, posing in outrageously freaky costumes everywhere she goes, from the airport to the Grammys. By preaching the gospel of tolerance and self-respect to her army of "Little Monsters," she's split the difference between Oprah Winfrey and Madonna. It's a highly potent formula that's turned her into arguably the biggest star of the new millennium, with a staggering 34,500,000 Twitter followers. Her only challenge now is finding new ways to wow her audience.
BEYONCE
Even if Beyonce Knowles had never done anything beyond the string of hits she recorded with Destiny's Child in the late 1990s and early 2000s, we'd still remember her as the leader of one of the greatest girl groups of all time – for "No, No, No," for "Bills, Bills, Bills," for "Say My Name" and "Independent Women" and of course for "Bootylicious." But that was just the beginning. As a solo artist, Beyoncé has soared to new heights of inspiration. Her many smash singles, from "Crazy in Love" to "Irreplaceable" to "Single Ladies," make up one of the past decade's strongest pop portfolios. More than that, though, Beyoncé herself has become an icon to countless fans – a high priestess of empowerment and unflappable attitude.
RIHANNA
THE WHITE STRIPES
"The joke was always, 'We'll take Detroit garage rock to the world," Jack White told Rolling Stone in 2002. Mission accomplished. The White Stripes' combination of raucous punk and Delta blues resonated with MTV and rock radio, and their 2003 single "Seven Nation Army" has become a worldwide soccer stadium anthem. Born on the Detroit club scene in 1997, the band hit big in the early 2000s with a fully realized aesthetic: childlike lyrics, a peppermint color scheme, an obsession with the number three and supposed family ties (White introducing drummer Meg onstage as his "big sister," when they were actually exes). But they truly thrived during their intense live gigs, where White tore up his cheapo Airline guitar and pogoed across the stage as Meg thrashed like a cavewoman. "There is something about the way I attack things and the way she attacks things," White told Rolling Stone in 2005. "When you put those dynamics together, something interesting happens." The Stripes officially called it quits in 2011 after a few years of inactivity, but White has blazed forward on his own – most recently with his excellent solo debut, 2012's Blunderbuss.
THE ROOTS
The Roots may not have technically been the first live band in hip-hop – shout-out to Stetsasonic – but hands down, they're the greatest. Drummer Ahmir Thompson (a.k.a. Questlove) and rapper Tariq Trotter (a.k.a. Black Thought) connected in the late 1980s, when they were classmates at a performing-arts high school in Philadelphia. From 1993 on, they recorded a string of acclaimed LPs with an expanded line-up that took the jazzy style of predecessors like A Tribe Called Quest in revolutionary new directions – stirring in funk, soul, psychedelia and art-rock influences as the years flew by. In 2009, after nearly 15 years of tireless touring, the Roots accepted a gig as the house band on Jimmy Fallon's new late-night show. This could have heralded a comfortable retirement – but instead they've somehow become even more prolific, releasing some of their most fearless music to date and jamming on national television with everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Prince.
THE STROKES
The Strokes burst onto the scene in 2001 with an effortlessly distinct sound: Julian Casablancas' audible distant scowl, Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr.'s clashing double-guitar attack and an air-tight rhythm section. The band's first two albums, 2001's Is This It and 2003's Room on Fire, wrapped the youthful decadence and dive-bar realism of lower Manhattan life into contagious hooks recalling the Velvet Underground. The combination was monumental enough to open doors for a generation of rock & roll bands – including Kings of Leon, the Black Keys and many more. "Why does everything that has to be big and popular suck?" Julian Casablancas asked Rolling Stone in 2003. "We're trying to change that."
GREEN DAY
Green Day rose out of the San Francisco punk rock scene of the late 1980s, but from the very beginning they had global ambitions. Despite the inevitable cries of "sell-out," the three-piece band signed to a major label in 1994 and released Dookie. Within months, every high school kid in America was blasting "Longview," "Basket Case" and "Welcome to Paradise" in their bedrooms, and the band was stealing the show at Woodstock 1994. They continued to release hit records over the next decade (including the ballad "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)," but in 2004, they wowed the critics with their anti-Bush rock operaAmerican Idiot. Just as they were about to be written off as has-beens, an entirely new generation of teenagers became obsessed with the group and the album became a landmark release. Nearly a decade later, they remain one of the biggest bands on the planet.
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