Musical artists who bridged the gap...

...between experimental and mainstream music.

Peter Gabriel comes to mind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xZmlUV8muY"]Peter Gabriel - Games Without Frontiers - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_61sjeayD1M"]Peter Gabriel - San Jacinto - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B94c6CRcwU"]I Have The Touch- Peter Gabriel - YouTube

 

thanks in large part to such institutions as the r.i.a.a. and clearchannel, i consider mainstream a waste of my time.

 

You rebel you.

 

I don't find anything experimental about Peter Gabriel.
If anything, this is experimental:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW-n6GWFAvI"]Acid house from 1958 ... Tom dissevelt & Kid Baltan ( Dick Raaijmakers ) syncopation - YouTube

 

So? I can point out lots of examples of purely experimental music, but that's not what this thread is about.

And yeah, Peter Gabriel is quite experimental for an artist who has received as much mainstream attention as he has. It's experimental, but in a pop sense.

 

Not what this thread is about? Techno has become pretty mainstream and it surely wasn't in 1958.

 

It's about specific artists who bridged the gap between experimental and mainstream music.

 

Tom Disseveld and Kid Baltan isn't specific enough?

 

They achieved mainstream success?

 

Indeed.
So how about Focus?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fEkYxRCl_c"]Focus - Hocus Pocus (Live) - YouTube

 

The Beatles- Sgt. peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
Pink Floyd-Dark Side of the Moon
Nine Inch Nails-The Downward Spiral
Prodigy-Fat of the land
Radiohead-Kid A

 

Focus never received much attention in the states, though the song 'Hocus Pocus' did receive international attention.

But yeah, I would say they would make a fairly good example, though probably not an obvious one.

 

Techno is subgenre of EDM (Electronic Dance Music) and had some mainstream success in the early 90s. The EDM your talking about today thats become mainstream is not Techno, but rather, Electro, Dubstep and Trance

 

Sublime

 

The Mars Volta is pretty experimental and has some mainstream success.

 

How is Sublime experimental?

 

You are joking, right?

 

No I'm serious classifying todays EDM under a blanket term like techno is the same as labeling The Beatles, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Metallica as "Country Music".

 

In the way that they combined reggae, rock, punk, hip hop, folk, electronic, etc. into into one funky sound.

 

Good point.

Some others that come to mind:

Anthrax and Public Enemy

Aerosmith and Run DMC

Oh and can't forget Bad Brains, bridging Reggae, Punk and Metal.