I really don't know much about the influence of anime music on the whole Japanese music scene, although I would be very interested to find out. Glen Kawano likes the contrast of Basara's raspy voice compared to usually sacharine voiced J-pop idol singers. Koichi, a friend of mine has told me that Fire were quite popular in Japan whilst Macross 7 was on TV, although I've never known a non-anime fan to have heard of them.

In the 1996 Newtype Almanac Macross 7 came out very well from the Newtype readers polls. Macross 7 came first as favorite anime series, with 1155 votes, Gundam W second with 706 votes, and Tenchi Muyo third with 350 votes. (Ah! My Goddess and Slayers were 4th and 5th).

Interestingly all these series did poorly in the TV ratings. Shows like Blue Seed, H2 and Slam Dunk doing a lot better, even G-Gundam did better. So Newtype readers really seem to like Macross! ^_^

Basara Nekki came 1st as favorite male anime character, the lead from Gundam W (Heero Yui) second. Lots of characters from Gundam W were in the top 10, as was a Blue Seed character and Tenchi himself. By the 1997 poll (3 years after the series first aired) Basara was STILL voted into the top 10 male anime characters by Newtype readers. By 1998 Newtype seems to have stopped running the poll in the same manner. Bah.

Mylene did even better with more votes as the no.1 favorite female character. Belldandy came second. Highest Tenchi character was 7th. Although Mylene did not enter the top 10 in 1997.

In the 1996 CD charts for anime soundtracks (I believe this is anime only, only new CD's counted), Lets Fire!! came 1st, Galaxy Network Chart 2nd, Second Fire!! 4th, Mylene Jenius sings Lynn Minmay 5th, and Live Fire!! 6th.
That's 5 out of the top 10 sellers. Not bad eh! Even more impressive was that in the 1997 charts Galaxy Network Chart is still in the top 10 sellers!

 
You can get the full info from the 1996 Newtype poll at:
AET Anime Voting Centre (LINK LOST SADLY NOW - 26th April 1999). Their data is not from all the same tables that mine was taken, and I can't translate all the info myself, for example their top album sellers is TOTAL sales of the albums since the release date.