History FollowTheLeader / Music

* Thanks to how huge Mumford & Sons have gotten in recent years, there has been a huge resurgence of Main/FolkMusic such as the Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men, Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeroes, the Avett Brothers, and more trying to capitalize off of Mumford's success. [[note]] Some of these bands, such as the Avett Brothers, have been around earlier than Mumford but only got more attention after Mumford got big.

* Ever since Ed Sheeran's success countless other English folk singers like James Bay, James Arthur, Passenger, George Ezra and even Music/NiallHoran (despite being Irish) have started popping up on the American charts.
* The smash success of Music/LuisFonsi and Music/DaddyYankee's "Despacito" remix (with Justin Bieber) in summer 2017 led to several other reggaeton songs getting remixes with mainstream pop artists, such as J Balvin's "Mi Gente" with Music/{{Beyonce}}, "Subeme La Radio" by Enrique Iglesias and Sean Paul, and "Bailemos" by CNCO featuring Little Mix.

* The late Nineties and early Aughts saw a huge success of bubblegum dance music, especially thanks to Danish group Music/{{Aqua}}. The most blatant Aqua clones were Music/ToyBox, another Danish project that followed their example to a T: the SopranoAndGravel dynamic of a chirpy tiny female singer and deep-voiced male singer, childish lyrics full of sexual innuendos, super colorful and intentionally cheesy videoclips, etc. The videos for their first successes "Tarzan and Jane" and "Best Friend" were obviously modeled after Aqua's "Doctor Jones" and "Barbie Girl" respectively.

* The late Nineties and early Aughts saw a huge success of bubblegum dance music, especially thanks to Danish group Music/{{Aqua}}. The most blatant Aqua clones were {{Music/Toy-Box}}, another Danish project that followed their example to a T: the SopranoAndGravel dynamic of a chirpy tiny female singer and deep-voiced male singer, childish lyrics full of sexual innuendos, super colorful and intentionally cheesy videoclips, etc. The videos for their first successes "Tarzan and Jane" and "Best Friend" were obviously modeled after Aqua's "Doctor Jones" and "Barbie Girl" respectively.

* The late Nineties and early Aughts saw a huge success of bubblegum dance music, especially thanks to Danish group Music/{{Aqua}}. The most blatant Aqua clones were [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy-Box Toy-Box]], another Danish project that followed their example to a T: the SopranoAndGravel dynamic of a chirpy tiny female singer and deep-voiced male singer, childish lyrics full of sexual innuendos, super colorful and intentionally cheesy videoclips, etc. The videos for their first successes "Tarzan and Jane" and "Best Friend" were obviously modeled after Aqua's "Doctor Jones" and "Barbie Girl" respectively.

* Music/MuddyWaters: First blues singer to use electric guitars to provide a heavier sound. Also the first one to not simply sing about melancholy, but also pure erotic lust. Both very influential on later blues artists, as well as British blues/rock performers like Music/TheRollingStones, Music/EricClapton and Music/LedZeppelin.

** The success of The Beatles also created something never seen before: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_number-ones_by_British_artists a British musical invasion]]. Every British pop/rock artist who made it big internationally (Music/DavidBowie, Music/EltonJohn, Creator/GeorgeMichael, Music/BlackSabbath, Music/LedZeppelin, Music/DeepPurple, Music/TheSpiceGirls, Music/TheWho, Music/TheKinks, Music/TheYardbirds, Music/TheRollingStones, Music/TheMoodyBlues, Music/PinkFloyd...) might have never been taken seriously if the Beatles didn't do it before them.

** In Japan there was a whole new genre born out of these attempts, the Group Sounds genre, which lasted roughly half a decade before being replaced by the New Rock spinoff genre, but not before birthing a number of popular bands such as The Tigers (Music/KenjiSawada's big break), The Tempters (Music/TheRollingStones to the Tigers' Music/TheBeatles), and The Spiders (Music/TheHollies to the other two).

* Music/TheRollingStones: The first rock group with a "bad, dangerous" image, later topped by countless imitators, from Music/TheWho, Music/BlackSabbath, Music/AliceCooper, Music/TheSexPistols, Music/{{Nirvana}} to Music/MarilynManson and Music/{{Eminem}}.

** In the 1990s, the "[[NiceHat hat act]]" craze was in full bloom in country music. Many young, hot acts were kicking off their careers in their mid-20s like Music/GeorgeStrait did, and usually wore cowboy hats, jeans and pressed shirts just like George. While this gave the genre many talented megastars in the likes of Music/AlanJackson, Music/ClintBlack, and Music/GarthBrooks, and Music/KennyChesney managed to move on from being a generic "hat act" to a well-respected artist after 2000, it also gave the genre plenty of bland radio fodder pretty boys. Over time, "hat act" became a derogatory term.

** The release of ''Music/SgtPeppersLonelyHeartsClubBand'' kicked off a craze of lushly-orchestrated psychedelic music and {{concept album}}s (like ''Music/{{Tommy}}'' by Music/TheWho and ''[[Music/ThePrettyThings S.F Sorrow]]''). A few years later, there was a deliberate "back to basics" movement away from such bloated production... that just happened to start up after the less-elaborate ''Music/TheWhiteAlbum'' was released.

* When ''A Christmas Together'' by Music/JohnDenver and Franchise/TheMuppets became a hit album in 1979, Creator/{{Disney}} responded the next year with ''Disney's Merry Christmas Carols'', which similarly featured a FolkMusic singer (Larry Groce) performing both serious and comical Christmas songs with a beloved ensemble of characters (WesternAnimation/MickeyMouse, WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck and WesternAnimation/{{Goofy}} in particular), including LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters each singing a line in a rollicking take on "The Twelve Days of Christmas". The Disney album also included [[KidsRock a children's chorus]], one of whom--a young Creator/MollyRingwald--even got a StepUpToTheMicrophone moment to sing an entire song.

** The Mickey Mouse Club is to blame for many pop artists of the late nineties. Spears, Aguilera, and Timberlake and Chasez of Music/{{NSYNC}} got their start on the show.

** The Mickey Mouse Club is to blame for many pop artists of the late nineties, most notably Spears, Aguilera, and several members of Music/{{NSYNC}} and the Music/BackstreetBoys.

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* Classical music is littered with examples of this trope; pieces of music considered revolutionary at the time they premiered would often spawn scores of imitators, sometimes to the point of changing musical tastes and convention the world over. This isn't just true of music that was well-received upon its inception, either; Music/IgorStravinsky's ''Theatre/TheRiteOfSpring'' was so controversial that the audience at its premiere ''rioted'', and yet it's been so influential in the modern era that much of 20th-century orchestral music might as well be called "The Rewrite of Spring".

* Music/DukeEllington: The first jazz band leader with a serious image, much like a composer of classical music. He inspired Music/CountBasie, ''Thelonious Monk'', Music/MilesDavis, among others.

* Music/MuddyWaters: First blues singer to use electric guitars to provide a heavier sound. Also the first one to not simply sing about melancholy, but also pure erotic lust. Both very influential on later blues artists, as well as British blues/rock groups like Music/TheRollingStones, Music/EricClapton and Music/LedZeppelin.

* After Music/JeffersonAirplane, Music/JimiHendrix and Music/TheDoors hit big in the late '60s, major labels signed every psychedelic act they could find. Some found genuine talent: The jazz label Verve Records signed Music/VelvetUnderground and Music/FrankZappa. Warner signed the Music/TheGratefulDead, although they used their contract to make three wildly uncommercial albums before making their two classic records in 1970 (after which, they promptly split from the label). And EMI, looking for a band that sounded similar to the Beatles' new psychedelic sound, signed a small psychedelic band called Music/PinkFloyd. Other labels weren't so lucky and were stuck with multi-million dollar contracts with one hit wonders like The Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Ultimate Spinach, Bubble Puppy and The Electric Prunes.

* Music/MuddyWaters: First blues singer to use electrical guitars to provide a heavier sound. Also the first one to not simply sing about melancholy, but also pure erotic lust. Both very influential on later blues artists, as well as British blues/rock groups like Music/TheRollingStones, Music/EricClapton and Music/LedZeppelin.

*** In turn, an alternate scene dubbed by the media as the "anti-[[Music/BritneySpears Britney]]" movement made headway after the success of Music/AvrilLavigne, a teenage star who countered the trend of teenage pop performers by [[ThreeChordsAndTheTruth writing (or co-writing) their own material and performing with musical instruments]], adopting a more "rock" image and sound, downplaying the sexualized, slick, choreographed IdolSinger image Britney and her fellow pop stars adopted, and by asserting (or giving the impression of asserting) control of their musical input, often with a feministic "Girl Power" message attached to it. Artists like Music/MichelleBranch, Music/VanessaCarlton, Skye Sweetnam, and Music/SaraBareilles followed Avril, while Music/DemiLovato and Music/TaylorSwift took strong cues from that scene within more commercial styles. Music/MandyMoore, who began as a Britney-like teen pop starlet (with dyed blonde hair), even tried to re-emerge in the movement after her reinvention with her album ''Wild Hope''.

** The Mickey Mouse Club is to blame for many pop artists of the late nineties, most notably Spears, Aguilera, and several members of *Music/{{NSYNC}} and the Music/BackstreetBoys.

* Another trend that begin at the turn of the millennium. The "Latin Boom." It started with Music/RickyMartin and Music/JenniferLopez, and then there was a long string of people singing in both English and Spanish (Music/{{Shakira}}, Marc Anthony, Thalia, Paulina Rubio). Even Music/ChristinaAguilera got in on the game.

* In the wake of [[Music/WendyCarlos Walter Carlos]]' ground-breaking hit album ''Music/SwitchedOnBach'', record companies would acquire Moog modular synths (the bigger, the better), get musicians who had a vague idea on how to handle such a machine and have them remake popular classical music with it, believing that this would be the next big fad in music. It wasn't.

* Music/MichaelJackson's ''Music/{{Thriller}}'' videos were a game changer for the music video industry. Up to that point, videos were mostly glorified concert performances and few included dancing. Jackson introduced sensational dance moves and line-dancing with other dancers, something that was quickly copied by almost every popular music artist afterwards. While he is often credited with creating the concept of, well, the ConceptVideo, those existed before Jackson -- what he ''did'' popularize were big-budget, special effects-heavy examples of the form.
** Jackson was also one of the first to work with an established director of films for his ConceptVideo - ''Music/{{Thriller}}'' was directed by Creator/JohnLandis, who Jackson recruited after watching (and loving) ''Film/AnAmericanWerewolfInLondon''.

** In Japan there was a whole new genre born out of these attempts, the Group Sounds genre, which lasted roughly half a decade before being replaced by the New Rock spinoff genre, but not before birthing a number of popular bands such as The Tigers (Music/KenjiSawada's big break), The Tempters (Music/TheRollingStones to the Tigers' Music/TheBeatles), and The Spiders.

* After Music/ABBA won in 1974, a lot of entries in the Serioes/EurovisionSongContest for years afterward attempted to follow their lead. In particular the 1975 winner, "Ding Dinge Dong" was very much in the same mould. You can still see this trope at play in the [=ESC=] to this day: in any given year, there will always be a number of entries that blatantly ape the previous year's winner, though it hardly ever works.

** The success of The Beatles also created something never seen before: [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_number-ones_by_British_artists a British musical invasion]]. Every British pop/rock artist who made it big internationally (Music/DavidBowie, Music/EltonJohn, Creator/GeorgeMichael, Music/BlackSabbath, Music/LedZeppelin, Music/DeepPurple, Music/TheSpiceGirls, Music/TheWho, Music/TheKinks, Music/TheYardbirds, Music/TheRollingStones, Music/TheMoodyBlues...) might have never been taken seriously if the Beatles didn't do it before them.

* Music/AmyWinehouse inspired a retro-blues movement that includes Duffy, Music/{{Adele}}, Paloma Faith, and possibly Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. She also led to a major resurgence in the popularity of female singer, songwriters in general all over the world, with the likes of Music/LadyGaga, Florence Welch and Music/JessieJ, all of whom have emerged since ''Music/BackToBlack'''s release, crediting Winehouse with paving the way for them and making it easier for them to have mainstream success.