Polling Time!
What are everybody’s five favorite bands?
For me:
1.) Bind Guardian
2.) Iron Maiden
3.) HammerFall
4.) Dream Theater
5.) Black Label Society
Beatles
Led Zeppelin
Pink Floyd
U2
Simon and Garfunkel
Obvious choices, all. I am trying to branch out, though…Marcy Playground and The Go! Team (check them out if you’ve never heard of them, they’re great) are a couple of my current favorites.
- CCR
- Simple Minds
- AC/DC
- The Highwaymen
- Crowded House.
Maybe.
Actually, it’s hard to pick a top five.
- Police
- Smiths
- Pulp (recent discovery)
- Wallflowers
- Cowboy Junkies
Lots more… but these are always at the top.
[ol]
[li]Radiohead[/li][li]Weezer[/li][li]The Smiths[/li][li]Nirvana[/li][li]The Cure[/li][/ol]
That was not easy and will probably change by tomorrow with the exception of 1+2.
- Hüsker Dü
- The Who
- The Pixies
- Butthole Surfers (Pre-1996)
- The Pogues
- The Electric Light Orchestra
- The Beatles
- Alison Krauss + Union Station
- ABBA
- Blondie
- Camper Van Beethoven
- They Might Be Giants
And a tie for all the others, headmost including Sparklehorse, any of the Elephant Six Collective (Apples in Stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel, Elf Power, etc.), The Who, Zeppelin, Pete Seeger, Arlo Gutherie, Woodie Gutherie (if those three count), and tons of others. Really, I have two favorite bands and a bunch of other bands that’s body of work is great.
- Alan Parsons Project
- Rush
- Pink Floyd
- Cruciform Injection
- Assemblage 23
There are many more but these are pretty consistently in my top 5 these days.
Well, they weren’t called The Band without good reason.
- The Beatles
- Simon and Garfunkel
- The Doors
- Pink Floyd
- Beatles (my first love)
- Zeppelin
- Pink Floyd
- The Who
- Alice In Chains
Those don’t represent the whole spectrum of what I love, though. I could go on and on and you’d have a better understanding of what my tastes are like.
Hard to pick five, so in no particular order:
Belle and Sebastian
Velvet Underground
The Magnetic Fields
Starlet
The Hepburns
Like so many people, I can hardly pick only five favorites.
I think I’ll pick 5 bands that roughly approximate the spectrum of music I listen to most.
Led Zeppelin
Metallica
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Rolling Stones
Stone Temple Pilots
…so basically, most of my favorite music sounds at least a little bit like one of these artists’ music. To actually pick five bands that I’d claim to like more than all others, well, would just be wrong. After all, my library currently has over 700 artists in it (even if almost half of those artists have a mere one song therein). 
- King Crimson
- Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention
- The Beatles
- Mike Keneally and Beer for Dolphins
- Pre And Then There Were Three Genesis
- NWA
- Duran Duran
- Coldplay
- The Streets
- 213
Now I know this is really, really, really sad but I was going to list Girls Aloud. 
- Crooked Fingers
- Primus
- Pearl Jam
- Southern Culture on the Skids
- The Violent Femmes
My top five changes from day to day…but the five that are always near the top would be:
Turbonegro
The Cramps
Electric Frankenstein
The Dead Boys
The Dictators (DFFD!)
- Tool
- A Perfect Circle
- Red Hot Chilli Peppers
- Pearl Jam
- Nirvana
Zoe could be my twin! But I’ve started listening to more early jazz stuff now, so my list has changed a little over the past year or so.
- The Beatles (duh, for me anyway)
- The Band
- Simon & Garfunkel
- Louis Armstrong/Fats Waller (it’s a tie)
- early jazz divas (i.e. Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan) - I couldn’t possibly pick a favorite!
…but there are so many more! These probably aren’t even my top five, just the ones I’ve listened to most recently.
- pavement
- the smiths
- the afghan whigs
- de la soul
- new pornographers
but maybe 2 or 3 of those are constantly changing.