Sam Phillips - Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash

Jim Stewart/Estelle Axton - Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett

Berry Gordy - Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Temptations, Four Tops

Ahmet Ertegün - Led Zeppelin, Cream, AC/DC, Chic

Chris Blackwell - Bob Marley, Free, U2

David Geffen - Eagles, Joni Mitchell Crosby Stills Nash & Young

Geoff Travis - Smiths, The Strokes, The Libertines

Alan McGhee - Oasis, Primal Scream,

Simon Cowell - Zig & Zag, Power Rangers, Robson & Jerome

You missed out Sinitta among Cowells list of superstars. Who can forget the mighty So Macho!!

So what is this spurious list supposed to illustrate?
If you put together a list of successful "pop" entrepreneurs, Cowell would head a list which would include JK, Micky Most, Stock Aikten Waterman and Larry Parnes .All very good at turning cheap potent pop music into gold.

Knocking Simon Cowell for producing two successful TV formulas which then sell millions of CD's is like a broken pencil, pointless.

Just mentioning it...by the way, I forgot the Teletubbies.

What your list illustrates is that some people can turn cheap potent pop music into gold - Simon Cowell has the ability to turn cheap crap into more cheap crap that sells....

as JK mentioned a while back - Simon Cowell - great at marketing, crap ears. Are we in danger of becoming the same? (without the 'good at marketing' bit...)

Is it possible to sell 'millions of CD''...and all of them be 'crap'?

Just mentioning it...

Simon Cowell was employed by BMG to sell records and make profit for the company. He came from Fanfare a pop label with a brief at BMG to find and market pop records. He wasn't employed to develop credible artists, if this occurred it was a bonus.

He succeeded in his mission by having the ears and contacts to do it. Nobody in the record business has a 100% strike record, anything above 70% is great. Simon's batting average and ability to take his winners into the sales stratosphere makes him a legend in the making.

People remember Pop = Popular!

I still think his records are rubbish....

Susan Boyle is his greatest discovery - and ensures that Simon Cowell has the highest selling ever debut album by a female artist in the USA. A record which will probably never be broken.

I dont like X Factor - but I admire the way in which Cowell takes an artist and allows them to reach their potential ( with knobs on )

Even the Beatles did some awful covers songs in their early days as well.

Simon Cowell is now at his peak. Susan Boyle is his crowning achievement. He will continue to do well but I cant see him ever repeating the Boyle success. But it puts him up there as one of THE top impressarios of all time.

Lets be honest - we would all love to have his sales record.

Sometimes I cant believe you lot....sales or not - their all rubbish.

I bet you slag off bankers for being greedy,and ruining the country and then praise poor taste like Cowells purely cos they sell...

Can millions of record buyers be wrong? As far as their own subjective tastes go, no

As far as good taste goes - YES

no - I wouldn't like his sales - not at the expense of my own taste and album collection...

Stop pandering to the banal & mediocre...its rubbish!

I'm only being honest....

What you are doing is to express your own prejudiced and biased view. New music is purchased by the young, certainly under 20yr old, many under 16. It has always been that way and those ears like catchy melodic songs with a strong hook. Ask JK he has made a career out recognising this very simple fact.

Your tastes have no relevance. You might as well be a fan of classical music or jazz and complain why neither of these quality genres are never represented in the singles charts.

'My tastes have no relevance'...???!!!

says who???!!

I argue that Simon Cowells taste has no relevance - just cos it sells doesn't give it relevance...its pandering to the lowest common denominator...this is not an indictment of anyone who buys his 'product' - its just shiny and flashy and cheap and easy to find...but still rubbish

You keep using JK as an example of how its done! Of how 'what' is done?? When I was under 20, I liked a catchy melodic songs with a strong hook - so I listened to Bowie, The Beatles, Hendrix most of the Motown catalogue, etc etc as well as the Monkees and the Archies...thats what was going on - now its 'retro' or 'classic'

Simon Cowell is not the saviour of anything - the real music is out there - played by young musicians in small clubs & venues trying hard to get noticed in an industry that holds a self promoting musically vacuous tv producer as a 'role model'. (dont take that wrong Simon)

People used to say to me 'its a music BUSINESS' - i nearly fell for it - actually its a 'MUSIC business'

No Harry, it's the MUSIC BUSINESS - without one, you won't have the other. And with the business side in sad decline due to the internet and the inability of the old executives to spot the direction it was going, the music side is suffering badly.

But don't blame Simon, who is doing a brilliant job in one small area of it... blame the spineless, gutless, clueless executives failing to discover and market and promote the next great talents.

You cannot knock the sales on Susan Boyle and X Factories... but you can knock the lack of sales and exposure on great new music talent of more complex (and some would say rewarding) sounds.

Wrong, Blue Boy. The generation you refer don't buy music. It's the first generation where sharing MP3s illegally is normalised...and to be fair, most of them aren't aware that you're meant to pay for MP3s.

Point taken JK and agreed....I just find this fixation with Simon Cowell as a shining example of 'how to do it' a bit exasperating when some of the spirit of the people I mentioned in my first correspondence - Blackwell, Gordy, Mcghee etc - seemingly forgotten or thought of as never to be repeated (from a musical point...not business wise...)

They all knew catchy tunes and simple hooks - and found relevant, meaningful, cool and varied music. No problem with conveyor belt stuff either - look at Motown.Very little chaff there!

We'd all stand up for human rights against overwhelming circumstances - cant we stand up here and say 'Its rubbish' - or maybe you're all fans of Steve Brookstein, or Leon or whatever they are called...

I thought 'Everyones Gone To the Moon' was/is a good track, and 'Good News Week' had a pretty cool lyric - cant see Leona covering that one...!