In your "Objective" opinion, which are the 5 greatest Rock Bands of all time?

Cafe Society
1

I know it is very hard to rate bands from different times and musical taste is difficlt to explain. But, given music sales, chart hits, innovation, brand name, fan base, whole album muscial expirience and other factors (include whatever you consider adds to the bands “ranking”), I would say that the top 5 best Rock Bands are as follows:

1) The Beatles - 1 BILLION album sold, incredibly innovative at the time with great classics and 27 no.1 hits. A musical sensation in the 60’s hard to argue against them in the no.1 spot. Lennon and McCartney by themselves were legends, together they created a new generation in which music would take its course

**2) Led Zeppelin ** - 300 Million albums sold. Altough not know for launching many succesful singles, all Zep albums made it to the top ten in the U.S Charts. No other band has done this. Some may call them musical thieves, other call them pure artists. Jimmy Page is just too awsome on the guitar. Had a cult like following. I think a no.2 should go to the Zep.

3) Pink Floyd - 250 million albums sold. Although the band stared quite strongly with its first album, Piper at the Gates of Dawn. The fall of lead singer and guitarist Syd Barrert caused the band to expirment with sucess until the explosion of Dark Side of the Moon. With 14 YEARS on the billboards charts, DSOTM is considered by many to be the greatest concept album of all time. Wish you Were Here, Animals and especialy the Wall recieved massive sales and were truly prestine concept albums focusing on lyrics other than your typical love songs.

4) The Rolling Stones - 200 Million albums sold. Probably the only band that remotley rivaled the Beatles in the 60’s. Great guitar riffs combined with a bad-ass attitude created a cult like following to this band than continues even today. Most famously known for there hit song “I Can Get No Satisfaction”, whos main line and riff were made by Keith Richard your sterotypical drug user, rock star. They continue touring to this day.

5) Queen - Yes, Queen. Some may be suprised at this pick as this bands muisc is somewhat very diffrent from all the other bands. Yet 300 million albums sold, many number 1 hits, especially in the UK, makes it hard NOT to include them on this list. With rock theme songs like “We Will Rock You” and the nice ballad “Bohemian Rhasphody”, Queen was a diffrent innovative band. Also, Lead singer Freddie Mercury a very inspirational and brave lead singer.

I cannot help but have *some * biases in these ratings, though I do try to be objective. Some would put the Stones on top of Pink Floyd, others might not even include Queen at all, but alas, these are what I think are the 5 greatest bands.

What would you say are the 5 greatest rock bands of all time, and why would you rate them as such?

2
  1. Jefferson Starship―Great songs, great image
  2. Creed―Such a cool front man
  3. The Shaggs―True masters of their instruments
  4. The Rolling Stones―A great representation of rock and roll, rich white British kids stealing from blacks
  5. Warrant―Such a beautiful world view
3
  1. Queen
  2. Can
  3. The Geraldine Fibbers
  4. Radiohead
  5. The Microphones
4

The Beatles
Rush
The Who
Opeth
Pink Floyd

Not necessarily in that order.

5

Beatles
Rolling Stones
The Who
Clash
U2

Yeah, I’m old.

6

Pink Floyd
Led Zeppelin
Rush
The Who
The Cars - because weezer ripped off the cars, and then every emo band in existence ripped off weezer

7

The Beatles, of course.

U2

The Clash

Everyone who worked @ Motown back in the day

Spinal Tap.

2.5"of fun likes Creed… Wow. Now I understand.

8

Well, he doesn’t really. His whole post is shot through with sarcasm, as evidenced by the side comments.

9

I pretty much agree with the OP.

10

I agree with three of the OP bands (The Beatles, Led Zep and The Rolling Stones)

And as much as I adore Queen and Pink Floyd, I’d like to discard them for two replacements.

  1. Nirvana: Pretty much turned the rock world on its side in the early 90’s. Made popular a whole sub-genre of rock.

  2. Metallica: The Led Zeppelin of the 80s and early 90s. Better musicians than I think most people give credit for. Massive popularity, angry guitars, melodic masterpieces and thundering rock pieces. I love these guys, and they deserve their spot.

11

Wow, a lot of like thinkers in here…!

(1) The Beatles
(2) Pink Floyd
(3) Led Zeppelin
(4) Rush
(5) Metallica

Too tired right now to tell you why.

BTW, My #1 personal favorite rock band of all time is Pink Floyd, just FTR

12

Just my opinion -

  1. The Beatles
  2. Frank Zappa/Mothers of Invention
  3. King Crimson
  4. Pink Floyd
  5. Rolling Stones

Note that 2 and 3 are more one strong personality (Zappa and Fripp, respectively) pushing a rotating group of musicians

13

I almost agree with the first list, except for Zep. They did borrow or steal much of their music. Go for someone who broke new ground. Someone still playing today. Someone who influenced everything from Nirvana to Busta Rhymes to Trent Reznor.

And, of course, a band whose lead singer encompasses everything that is Rock and Roll. In all good and bad ways.

I give you the Eternal Masters, Black Sabbath.

14

Led Zep
Queen
TheRollingStones
The Beatles
The Who

Sorry lawoot saw Frank Zappa live at the oval and it was pretty appalling,apologies also to E-Sabbathloved Black Sabbath the album to death but when I saw them live they were extremely average,giving them the benefit of the doubt Isaw them again a year later and if anything they were worse.

15

I will give only two names …

Pink floyd.

queen.

16

[ul]
[/ul] [ol]
[li]The Beatles[/li][li]The Who[/li][li]Led Zeppelin[/li][li]The Kinks[/li][li]Yell County[/li][/ol]

17

I get the feeling that some people aren’t being very objective. :slight_smile:

grumble, grumble Warrant?! grumble, grumble

18

Led Zeppelin
Rush
The Beatles
Pink Floyd
The Who

19

The Beatles - when they came along Pat Boone, Mitch Miller and similar obscenities passed for music on the radio.

The Masters Apprentices - Aussie band who were offered the support gig for the Stones Australian tour back in the late 60s and knocked it back. Years later when I was managing a band former Master Jim Keyes had a band and we used to see each other all the time at agencies. I asked him why they knocked back the Stones gig and he said, “Because we were the best band in the world at the time. We would have blown the Stones off the stage. And the local audiences would have booed us to get off so the Stones could play.” Have a listen to Undecided, Wars, Or Hands Of Time, Buried And Dead, Living In A Child’s Dream, 5:10 Man, Think About Tomorrow Today, Turn Up Your Radio, Because I Love You and discover one of the secret great bands of the 60s. Unless you’re an Aussie.

Led Zeppelin - one of the best live shows I have ever seen. 27 February 1972. We sat on the hot concrete at the Showground and never noticed our aching butts until we left. And even then Super said, “I can die happy now.”

The Stones - obvious really.

Toss up between Elvis Costello and the Attractions/Bob Marley and the Wailers. Really the guy before the and is the source of all the good stuff but they had songs about “stuff” and the Attractions and Wailers were very fine bands.

20
  1. The Beatles, for reasons already mentioned
  2. Pink Floyd, ditto
  3. Queen, more agreement with previous posters
  4. The Eagles, for commingling rock and country fans, and for some of rock’s most-loved tunes
  5. Nirvana, because they paved the way for everything that came after