I gotta admit, I like the New Wave of New Wave thats going on now. Especially The Dead 60s who do the Clash thing way better then Rancid ever dreamed of. I’m thinking now would be a perfect time for The Soft Boys to make a follow up to their reunion album. They might finally get a hit.
Actually, I remember when this term was getting thrown about in a decade ago when bands like S.M.A.S.H. were supposed to be the next big thing, so this would be The New New Wave of New Wave.
I’m going to make the case again for Buffalo Springfield. They weren’t together long, but the directions that they laid down dominated American music for 25 years afterwards. They were the great cataylisers of US music in the '60’s - their first music took the Byrd’s blueprint forward in a clearer, more coherent direction and they wer alway more radio friendly, they had the last great protest song of the 60’s in “For What It’s Worth”, they branched into a sensitive, ambitious, introspective orchestrated psychedelia (and “Broken Arrow” might still be the best song Neil Young has ever written) - that ambition to expand wasn’t necessarily succcesful in itself, but like the Velvet Underground, they were a band that showed the kids in the garages what could be done. They invented country rock, they invented wimp rock, they invented Neil Young and they didn’t hang around to become a parody of themselves.
They had the most famous 1953 Pontiac hearse in the history of rock and roll. They suffered a legendary drug bust. They gave the rock world one of it’s foremost curmudgoens in Stephen Stills, a genuine weirdo in Bruce Palmer, one of it’s foremost pains in the arses in Neil Young (and that’s a good thing) and, had David Crosby been *allowed * to join, would have sported the most “rock and roll” individual ever. They made being Canadians fashionable before The Band did. They were sampled by Public Enemy. And they had a way cool name.
Everything they did was perfect or near enough to it. And they died before they got old! So, Buffalo Springfield - greatest rock and roll band ever, or what? 
I’m old enough to remember when music journalists were hailing Bruce Springsteen as the next big thing and the man who was about to save rock’n’roll. It was about the same time heavy metal band had grown to stadium size acts, Stones was getting repetitive and progressive rock (Yes, Genesis, Floyd) were masturbating musically in the studios (and I was buying all their albums). Springsteen was going back to the roots: three cords, a catchy tune. Maybe he would’ve been the next big thing if punk hadn’t come around.
But hindsight is, as always, 20/20, and Springsteen was only recycling. And tjhe music journalists who were hailing him were born in the mid 40’s and got enough nostalgia out of him to hope that he would put music back on track to what it was when they were young.
There has been good rock’n’roll made since 1980 (my demarcation line) and there was awful r’n’r made before. But I’ve not found a single band since then, where I couldn’t say “they sound like an updated version of…”
Rock’n’roll is not only middleaged, it’s a senior citizen. I’m not surprised Stones go on touring and wonder why they get derided for that. It’s their music and no one thought that the past greats of jazz (Sinatra, Basie, Ellington, Fitzgerald) should stop performing.
What Green Day is doing to punk, is akin to the service Harry Connick’s done to jazz.
kiss
KISS!
AC/DC
OZZY
What’s wrong with you people. 
For another opinion:
“After Bo Diddley, all music is commentary.” Roy Blount Jr. in Oxford American magazine.
We have taste? 
Whatever choice is made by a poster, it is usually a band they listened to as they were growing up, or, if they haven’t yet, the band they are infatuated with now.
And it’s still the Stones, no matter what anybody else says!
Kiss = unoriginal posers.
Face it, there are very,very few acts that are truly original and have had a commercial impact large enough, to truly change the music scene:
Elvis
Beatles
Stones
Who
Dylan
Hendrix
Led Z
Bob Marley
Sex Pistols
After '76, most innovation has been in black music and rap + hip-hop aren’t part of the discussion here.
cmon man, have you heard a passion play?
(follow the link at the bottom to learn more)
And also, i would like to nominate The Yardbirds
I’m going to suggest a band whose flaw is that they peaked with their first album:
Guns n’ Roses.
Lord knows, they lived the lifestyle. Too bad Axl Rose is determined to crap on their legacy to feed his own ego.
Depending upon the time of day… my state of mind… the convergence of certain planets… one of these 5 would be my vote:
The Minutemen
The Stooges
Motörhead
The Pretty Things
X
Lots of good suggestions, but I’m gonna submit my pick:
Los Lobos.
No thanks. I barely know you.
Led Zep.
Hard to pin the award on one group. Most are relative to their time. During their run Zeppelin rocked hard. Very, very hard.
They’re my bet.
Yardbirds= good.
I guess most of the members haven’t even heard of my nomination (The Zombies). 
My favorite albums ever:
Beatles
Zep
Who
Pink Floyd (Dark Side of the Moon being the best album ever recorded in the rock genre.)
Stones
Today, I would rank the best ever this way, tomorrow maybe a different way.
The Stones for hard rock…and the Beatles for soft rock. With thanks to Bill Haley and the Comets for a few great rock memories. (I’m older than dirt.)
What about the fusion of acid house and rock, like The Happy Mondays and countless other bands in Manchester during the late 80’s / early 90’s?
A good band, but file under New York Dolls: that sleazy glam/trash/punk rock with bad hair and worse vices thing {although most of the Dolls are dead by now: G n’ R were a bunch of dabblers by comparison} appealed because it sounded like something good which had come 15 years earlier, with better production and cannier marketing.
The Butthole Surfers.