Best American Band Nominations

I thought there was a poll on this but didn't find one. I'm set for about 38, so there's room for a dozen more in the poll. Also, I've been thinking about whether there's a good formula to determine best ones, like take in account the number of albums the band put out and the percentage of great ones.

Bad Brains
Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Flaming Lips
Fugazi
Funkadelic/Parliament
Gang Gang Dance
Hold Steady
Husker Du
Jesus Lizard
Jimi Hendrix Experience
Kyuss
Mastodon
MC5
Melvins
Metallica
Monster Magnet
Nirvana
Pavement
Queens Of The Stone Age
R.E.M.
Royal Trux
Slayer
Sleater-Kinney
Slough Feg
Sly & The Family Stone
Sonic Youth
Soundgarden
Spoon
Stooges
Talking Heads
The Replacements
TV On The Radio
Van Halen
Velvet Underground
White Stripes
Wilco
Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Here's some I'm not sure about, so you can either second some, or suggest something else.

Aerosmith
Alice Cooper
Blue Cheer
Earth
Kiss
Megadeth
Screaming Trees
Tool

tool suck.

Or move to strike out any from the second group :)

Suck and suck. Suckin up all you can suckin up all you can suck.
Workin up under my patience like a little tick.
Fat little parasite. Suck me dry.

Blood suckin parasitic little blood suckin parasitic little
blood suckin parasitic little tick
Take what you wanted and go.

Suck me dry.

Though failure to suggest a replacement will result in a default nomination for Slipknot. Or Train.

i vote for Guttural Secrete, purely for the vast amounts of gargled vaginal seepage in their music.

I nominate Korn and Insane Clown Posse

Train wins all polls.

The Beach Boys ferchrissake

I also nominate Nickelback, Maroon 5 and Matchbox 20

fuckin Ramones wtf

Sublime
The Bloodhound Gang
Kittie

Add Blue Oyster Cult, take out Slough Feg. And Alice Cooper wins.

Yep, there are obvious ones missing. Byrds too. FFS!

Blue Öyster Cult yeah. But too bad they didn't shut it down before Revolution By Night and Club Ninja, not to mention all the others after.

Considering that The Velvet Underground won the ILM tournament last year when bands included weren't even limited to American ones, I don't see any way they won't win it again.

Maybe not. So how about The Meters, Chic, Jefferson Airplane or Steely Dan?

Some people would disagree (but some people would agree with me 100% on this): Pixies

Byrds

Is this only rock bands btw?

Cuz Public Enemy, De La Soul, Wu-Tang Clan, etc...

Johnny Fever, I agree w/ u 100%

hi, brian wilson here, just reminding everyone that i've been constantly imitated for the past 40 years now

is this just rock? I don't get it.

if it isn't just rock, Parliament-Funkadelic wins by a wide margin imho

oh there they are, duh.

um yeah, P-Funk.

Mannheim Steamroller

Considering that The Velvet Underground won the ILM tournament last year when bands included weren't even limited to American ones, I don't see any way they won't win it again.

I think the results of that were a little skewed cuz of the whole round-robin structure

Flipper
Sun Ra
Hank Williams and Drifting Cowboys

PE, Tribe, Wu-Tang can be considered bands. I'm leaving out solo artists. 2/3 of Hendrix Experience are British, but Hendrix tips it. Jazz is a whole nother can of worms, just no room. Someone can argue for Miles' 70s fusion band, but I won't.

please add the following rock bands to yr consideration. thanks!!!!!!!!!!

40 Below Summer
36 Crazyfists
4Lyn
Adema
Alien Ant Farm
Amen
American Head Charge
Aqme
Apartment 26
Brian "Head" Welch
Blindspott
Carajo
Chimaira
Clawfinger
Coal Chamber
Cold
Crazy Town
D'espairsRay
Deadsy
Defenestration
Demon Hunter
Dir en Grey
Disturbed
Dope
Drowning Pool
Dry Kill Logic
Dža ili Bu
Eths
Evanescence
Exilia
Flaw
Flyleaf
Flymore
Fury of Five
Glassjaw
Godhead
Godsmack
Guano Apes
H-Blockx
Hed PE
Human Waste Project
Ill Niño
Incubus
Kid Rock
Kill II This
Kittie
Korn
Lifer
Limp Bizkit
Linea 77
Linkin Park
Living Sacrifice
Lostprophets
Machine Head
MaNga
Maximum the Hormone
Methods of Mayhem
Mudvayne
My Ruin
No One
Nonpoint
One Minute Silence
Orgy
Otep
Papa Roach
P.O.D.
Powerman 5000
Pre)Thing
Primer 55
Project 86
Puddle of Mudd
Puya
Rage Against the Machine
Raging Speedhorn
Rob Zombie
Saliva
Sevendust
Skindred
Skinlab
Skrape
Slaves on Dope
Slipknot
Soil
Soulfly
Spineshank
Staind
Static-X
Stereomud
System of a Down
Taproot
Thousand Foot Krutch
Tons (formerly Snot)
Trapt
Twisted Method
The Union Underground
Vanilla Ice
Videodrone
Will Haven

Leaving out solo artist but including Hendrix and Beefheart. Hendrix had a pretty stable band but don't know if you could say the same for Beefheart. Does this then exclude Hank Williams and drifting Cowboys? I would also like to nominate:
The Sonics and
The Seeds

Also

Pere Ubu.

Misfits
The Wipers

X Ray Spex

Vanilla Ice is a band?

Neutral Milk Hotel

not in love w/ em but really do think they deserve a shout-out

Vanilla Ice does not belong on this list. And not just because he's not a band

WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY

Guided By Voices!

^ i initially went "yeah!!" but a sec later mostly realized that, while great, their style is at least 75% beatles influenced

if there's gonna be a "winner" amongst all these, i'd def vote for the one w/ a quintessential "american sound". something that wasn't replicated in the UK or vice versa. so again, beach boys.

I realize I am in the minority, but I think that any discussion about the best American rock bands - certainly if we limit it to the '70s - needs to have Lynyrd Skynyrd on it.

And the Beatles were influenced by American's- Chuck Berry and Eddie Cochran, plus blues etc and the Beach Boys were influenced by The Beatles and so on and so on....

I always thought it was the Beatles that said they wanted to replicate BB's Pet Sounds?

maybe shouldn't have thrown in that "vice-versa".

Yeah, Sgt Pepper's is the love letter to Pet Sounds.

Hendrix had a pretty stable band but don't know if you could say the same for Beefheart. Does this then exclude Hank Williams and drifting Cowboys?

A stable lineup isn't the only thing that makes a band a band. Beefheart's band evolved, but does anyone really believe he could have made his records without his band? If one would doubt band status, it would be more like one like QOTSA, who also has a revolving cast, and Homme basically made the first album himself. Even his supergroup side project These Crooked Vultures basically sounded like Queens. I saw the Hank Williams documentary with a fair amount of live footage, and it didn't seem like he always performed with or needed a band. I could be wrong. To me, Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys seemed like more of a cohesive band.

Pere Ubu, Misfits, Wipers are solid. Guided By Voices maybe. Flipper, Sonics, Seeds and Neutral Milk Hotel did not have more than one great album. Sonics maybe had three, but balanced out by three duds. X-Ray Spex are British. How about X and Dinosaur Jr.?

Beatles influence on the Beach Boys is pretty indirect/inaudible imho

like I don't think Brian ever said "I'm going to write a Paul McCartney song!" and then carried through. if he did, he failed miserably cuz I sure can't think of one

bill magill still hates ILM faves Slough Feg i see

screaming trees totally belong in any poll btw

Bis

The best American band

http://www.theironskeptic.com/articles/nostradamus/DEVO.jpg

is Devo.
For their good music & essential life philosophy & they had the best music videos. (And the best music video DVD commentary!)

Devo! Yesss.

the carter family.
the memphis jug band.
gid tanner's skillet lickers.
the blue ridge highballers
the east texas serenaders
duke ellington's cotton club orchestra
louis armstrong's hot five and hot seven

John Coltrane Quartet
Cecil Taylor Unit (pick one)
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers (ditto)
Tony Williams' Lifetime (first incarnation)

worms, can thereof, etc.

really doing this? Ok, I agree 100% about the New York Dolls, Impressions, Spinners, the Miracles and that Gene Vincent band

Also, the motherfuckin' Coasters, the Shirelles, Gap Band, Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band/Kid Creole and the Coconuts

which James Brown band should be nominated?

and yeah, Louis Jordan And His Tympany Five.

and Eric B & Rakim. fuck, this is impossible. E Street Band?

Throwing Muses

Problem with JB is how rapidly his lineup changed; it's not as if he stayed with one lineup for years...or even one year. Bootsy was only in the band 11 months, for instance.

should the "Band" bit be replaced with "Artist" or "Pop Artist". as a concept, "Band" seems tired and forced. hard to define, and even then not especially satisfying.

that was a question

Yo La Tengo

Slint

Problem with JB is how rapidly his lineup changed; it's not as if he stayed with one lineup for years...or even one year. Bootsy was only in the band 11 months, for instance.

The JBs lineup with Bootsy & Catfish Collins was steady for its entire 11-month existence, though, because Brown basically hired the entire band (I forget what they were called before they became the JBs). So the 1969-71 band is the one to vote for, seems to me.

WEEN

Yes. I prefer 'Artist' then we can really get cracking. Bo Diddley, Nina Simone etc...

Wasn't Maceo Parker reasonably consistent as part of the JB's?

He was, as was Fred Wesley; at the very least, from 1965 to 1975.

those are the prime years, I would say.

changing this to "Artist" would make it huge but also more fun, me thinks

also, it's more appropriate for the current state of pop (both music and criticism). "Band" is so 70's...

all this seems so unwieldy now. a bunch of smaller era/genre polls would be better (but way too much hassle to run)

I wanted to run an 80s altrock/metal poll(ie no smiths, talking heads or pop/indie pop acts but (louder or heavier alt bands like) big black, husker du, swans etc along with metal/heavy rock/glam metal after easter if glenn helps with needle but i can just imagine the arguing over what everyone wants in or vetoed and im thinking fuck that.

Yeah, let's not overthink it. We'll stick to bands. Bands are a beautiful thing. The sad fuckin' fact that less people care about bands is all the more reason to do this poll. If someone wanted to a separate American solo artists poll, that would be interesting. The nomination list could end up having over a thousand names.

A thought about GBV. They're so important to me as an American band because they took the British influences they worshipped and they made something very American out of it to my ears. It reminds me of my suburban roots in a very woodsy blue collar town, where I can imagine busting through similar dirty melodic songs in my garage and then going into my backyard to drink beers and fish off of my dock with my uncle. It basically somehow reminds me of what I grew up identifying as the most American aspects of my most familiar surroundings, so it is very nostalgic without having listened to them in the past.

Well said. Ever seen the movie The Band That Would Be King about Half Japanese (for some reason I thought they were Canadian but apparently from Michigan, so we'll add them)? I think there's a segment about the Shaggs in that, with some footage of the girls. As influential/cute/amusing as they were, I can't imagine actually listening to the Shaggs, willingly, more than one or two more times before I die, ha ha. To each their own.

Regarding Motown vocal groups, I personally wouldn't include those particular ones. Partly because they don't play the music, but also because they don't write any of the songs. I would think any contender for best American bands should write most of their own music. So The Miracles and Impressions could qualify. People can make a case for others if they like.

― Fastnbulbous, Saturday, March 12, 2011 11:09 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It's okay guys, I've worked this one out. This is actually a Geir sockpuppet. Everyone stand down.

good lord.

There's 219 nominations so far.

A Tribe Called Quest
Aerosmith
Afghan Whigs
Alice Cooper
B-52s
Babes In Toyland
Bad Brains
Baroness
Big Star
Black Flag
Black Heart Procession
Blondie
Blue Cheer
Blue Öyster Cult
Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys
Bongwater
Boogie Down Productions
Brainiac
Brick
Buffalo Tom
Built To Spill
Butthole Surfers
Camper Van Beethoven
Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band
Caroliner
Cheap Trick
Chic
Contortions
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Cul De Sac
De La Soul
Dead Boys
Dead Kennedys
Devo
Dinosaur Jr.
Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band
Earth
East Texas Serenaders
Eleventh Dream Day
EPMD
Eric B & Rakim
Fear
Flipper
Fugazi
Funkadelic/Parliament
Gang Gang Dance
Goodie Mob
Green
Guided By Voices
Gun Club
Half Japanese
Hampton Grease Band
Hank Williams and the Drifting Cowboys
Helmet
Hüsker Dü
Imperial Teen
Jefferson Airplane
Jessamine
Jimi Hendrix Experience
Junior Boys
Kid Creole and the Coconuts
Kiss
Kyuss
Labradford
LCD Soundsystem
Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives & Sevens
Love
Low
Luna
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Magnetic Fields
Mastodon
MC5
Megadeth
Melvins
Metallica
Minor Threat
Minutemen
Misfits
Mission Of Burma
Modern Lovers
Monster Magnet
Mule
Neutral Milk Hotel
New York Dolls
Nirvana
NWA
Outkast
Palace Brothers
Pavement
Pere Ubu
Pixies
Polvo
Prince & The Revolution
Public Enemy
Queens Of The Stone Age
R.E.M.
Rancid
Red Red Meat
Return To Forever
Rocket From The Crypt
Romeo Void
Royal Trux
Run DMC
Scratch Acid
Screaming Trees
Seam
Shellac
Shoes
Slayer
Sleater-Kinney
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum
Slint
Slough Feg
Sly & The Family Stone
Social Distortion
Sonic Youth
Soul Asylum
Souled American
Soundgarden
Sparklehorse
Sparks
Spoon
Steely Dan
Suicidal Tendencies
Suicide
Sun City Girls
Sun Ra's Arkestra
Sunny Day Real Estate
Swans
T.S.O.L.
Talking Heads
Television
The Band
The Beach Boys
The Beastie Boys
The Blue Ridge Highballers
The Byrds
The Cars
The Carter Family
The Cecil Taylor Unit
The Coasters
The Cramps
The Crickets
The Dictators
The Doors
The Drifters
The E Street Band
The Feelies
The Flaming Lips
The Flying Burrito Brothers
The Four Tops
The Gap Band
The Grateful Dead
The Grifters
The Headhunters
The Hold Steady
The Impressions
The Isley Brothers
The J.B.'s
The Jayhawks
The Jazz Messengers
The Jesus Lizard
The John Coltrane Quartet
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
The Jungle Brothers
The Lazy Cowgirls
The Mahavishnu Orchestra
The Meat Puppets
The Memphis Jug Band
The Meters
The MGs
The Miracles
The Mothers Of Invention
The Patti Smith Group
The Pretenders
The Ramones
The Replacements
The Residents
The Sea And Cake
The Seeds
The Shaggs
The Skillet Lickers
The Sonics
The Spinners
The Stooges
The Strokes
The Temptations
The Tympany Five
The Velvet Underground
The Violent Femmes
The Walkabouts
The Walkmen
The White Rabbits
The White Stripes
The Wipers
Throwing Muses
Tony Williams' Lifetime
Torche
Tortoise
Tragic Mulatto
Trans Am
TV On The Radio
Uncle Tupelo
Unrest
Unwound
Van Halen
Walt Mink
War
Weather Report
Ween
Wilco
Wolf Eyes
Wu-Tang Clan
X
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Yo La Tengo

do Tom Petty/Heartbreakers and Bruce/E. St. Band not count?

Heartbreakers hadn't been nominated yet but it should be alright. I listed the E Street Band without Bruce Springsteen, because it's a tough one -- the only album they're given billing on the cover is the Live 1975-1985 album.

thats a whole lot of awesome American bands.

WHy didn't you include my suggestion of JOel & The Joels????

Angry Samoans. (I don't think they'll win.)

Shirelles rejected?

Shirelles are great, but do vocal group vehicles for Brill Building songwriters belong here? You could probably fill 100 slots for a poll just specific to that genre.

The Heartbreakers
Richard Hell & the Voidoids
Angry Samoans
Pentagram
Trouble
Saint Vitus
The Obsessed
High On Fire
Manilla Road
YOB
Neurosis
Converge
Testament
Anthrax
Riot
Morbid Angel
Death
The Germs
The Circle Jerks
Descendents
Big Boys
Big Black
Naked Raygun

you sure you really want to do this now?
also how are you going to tabulate. You didnt email a reply when i returned your email.

Sorry, I didn't get your reply. I did get some info from pfunkboy on how the metal polls are done. Definitely a lot of work. I'll talk to others to help decide the best way to do it.

i am pfunkboy, lol

Arg!

I know this is probably dead, but have to put KC and the Sunshine Band in just to be sure.

Slayer pretty much destroys any band mentioned here.

Where is ZZ Top?

Drive-By Truckers
Vulgar Boatmen
Archers Of Loaf
The Wrens
The Volebeats
Against Me
Mendoza Line
Silkworm
Animal Collective
My Morning Jacket
Moby Grape

Honestly, I think the best thing one can do with this kind of undertaking is to list the top several bands in every genre that is worthy of inclusion and go from there.

Not dead, just need to fill in a few more gaps, like ZZ Top and Animal Collective were key ones. It may take week or so before a voting/tabulation system is figured out -- my database skills are rusty. It won't lie dormant for years like that one poll (80s or 90s, I forget).

The Roots

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgM6A-mqTIKCdEx2aW96UmhydjFFd3ZtUlhpNlBtLXc&hl=en&authkey=CKuH0sYD

This thread's a great catalog of American music, but I really can't help but seeing 97% of the bands listed being cut and leaving us with Beach Boys and possibly Talking Heads. They're all great bands, sure, but it's p much hersay to deem Fugazi the greatest American band to have ever lived.

/theobvious
/2cents
/okimdone

I'm torn about Pretenders being here. Hynde is very American, and that comes through in the band's sound, but they've always been London-based and, at times, the line-up has been 75% English.

Buffalo Tom but no Buffalo Springfield? N. Young doesn't disqualify them, does he? And do the Funk Brothers fit in here somehow?

Just noticed Junior Boys are on the list. They are Canadian, right?

Also, there's shouldn't be a "The" in front of Ramones, but there should be a "The" in front of Magnetic Fields.

Did we give up on this? :(

Missing from the list:

Earth, Wind & Fire
Art Ensemble of Chicago
The O'Jays
Patti LaBelle & the Bluebelles / LaBelle
The Dave Brubeck Quartet
The Soul Stirrers
The Ink Spots
The Nat King Cole Trio
The Supremes / Diana Ross & The Supremes
Jackson 5 / The Jacksons
Duke Ellington and His Orchestra

IMO the last 3 at least should definitely be on the list.

This thread's a great catalog of American music, but I really can't help but seeing 97% of the bands listed being cut and leaving us with Beach Boys and possibly Talking Heads. They're all great bands, sure, but it's p much hersay to deem Fugazi the greatest American band to have ever lived.

The point is that there is an amazing depth of great American bands, and to see what the top 100 would be out of several hundred possibilities. I don't think it's a given that Beach Boys and Talking Heads would take the top two spots. Probably close to a dozen possibilities for those spots. Just like how we've done top 100 countdowns for various album polls, it seems people are interested in more than just what's #1, no?

It seems that all the email polls have been tabulated by only two database gurus -- Seandali and Glenn McDonald. I've reached out to the first but haven't heard anything. It would be great if one could be enticed into doing it, but I'd be happy to take a shot if one would give me some tips and a sample database to poke at, as I'm a bit rusty. I even had crazy ideas of getting a web form feeding into a database, but would have to bribe a programmer friend into helping with that, probably not worth the work.

So this may not happen for another month, but it will happen eventually!

Updated:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgM6A-mqTIKCdEx2aW96UmhydjFFd3ZtUlhpNlBtLXc&hl=en&authkey=CKuH0sYD#gid=0

Did we give up on this? :(

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, March 22, 2011 5:09 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

?