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

Cafe Society
21

1.Queen

The rest.
Pink Floyd

Marillion(with Fish)

Beatles.

Rolling Stones

22

Adding “I like and/or respect them” as a critical component:

  1. The Grateful Dead (For their groundbreaking A/V setup)
  2. X-Japan (not that original, but they reformed the heck out of Japanese rock)
  3. Smashing Pumpkins (Because that entire debacle with the therapist was unbelievably funny)
  4. The Beatles (Why not?)
  5. Mongolian Chop Squad (Because I can’t think of a fifth, and I absolutely loved the show.)
23

1 Beatles
2 New York Dolls
3 Stones
4 Ramones
5 Humble Pie

24

The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
Black Sabbath
The Jam (Preferred to the Clash, but that’s just IMO)
The Pixies (Nirvana? Yeah Right…)

25

The Who
Metallica
Rolling Stones
Guns and Roses
Iron Maiden

26
  1. The Beatles
  2. The Rolling Stones
  3. Led Zeppelin
  4. The Who
  5. Guns N Roses
27

Pink Floyd
The Beatles
Black Sabbath
Janes Addiction (Because in my book they beat Nirvana by a long shot.)
Buddy Holly

28
  1. The Beatles
  2. The Rolling Stones
  3. The Who
  4. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band
  5. The Kinks

Number of albums sold has not a thing to do with greatness. In the immortal words of Will Rogers: “A majority means nothing. Sometimes all the fools are on the same side.”

29

Who
Beatles
Floyd
Stones
Led Zeppelin

Combine the audio/video catalogs of these guys, and you have a master’s course in the bands that paved the way for almost everyone else.

30
  1. The Beatles
  2. The Rolling Stones
  3. The Who
  4. Genesis
  5. Pink Floyd
31
  1. Beatles
  2. Rolling Stones
  3. The Who
  4. Pink Floyd
  5. The Grateful Dead
32

Led Zeppelin.

The Beatles.

The Rolling Stones.

Pink Floyd.

Wilco.

33
  1. Beatles
  2. Zeppelin
  3. Ramones
  4. Nirvana
  5. Zappa

I think the OP’s list is close to what “the average classic rock fan” would say. A very good list.
Joe

34
  1. The Rolling Stones (Surprised this one isn’t on everybody’s list. They’re as much of a gimme as The Beatles, IMHO)
  2. The Who
  3. Led Zeppelin
  4. The Beatles

The first 4 were easy, but I’m in a bit of a quandary about #5. In 1988, I would have definitely chosen Pink Floyd. But it’s 2008, and somehow, they seem a lot less “great” than they used to. I do like a lot of the choices in this thread, but none of them seem quite right. I think I’ll throw my lot in with the OP and include the chronically underappreciated…

  1. Queen
35

Beatles
Led Zeppelin
Grateful Dead
Rolling Stones
Pink Floyd

36

I’ve only tallied the bands I listed as top 5 plus a new addition to “the group” (I also include my vote in the tally btw) there are too many individual bands to list them all. So far the SDMB has aranged the following groups in this order:

1 The Beatles - 26 votes

2 The Rolling Stones - 20 votes

3 Pink Floyd - 17 votes

4 Led Zeppelin - 15 votes

#5 The Who - 14 votes
#6 Queen - 9 votes

The Who, by popular vote or demand or whatever you call it, has 5 more votes than Queen.

Of course, this means nothing, but it is interesting nonetheless.

37

The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
The Who
The Ramones–either them or The Clash because of their taking music in a whole other direction. I was never a real punk fan, but this was new and innovative.
The Stone Ponies–because they gave us both The Eagles and Linda Ronstadt and mixed white country/folk along with R & B and all that black music ripped off by all those white boys. Dare I say that the Stone Ponies paved the way for Lynyrd Skynyrd and the like?

Ok, if I’m full of it, I then choose Zeppelin, Queen, Who, Beatles and Stones.

I suppose U2 needs to be in there somewhere…

38

1)Rush

2)Beatles

3)The Who

4)Led Zep

5)STP

39

  1. The Beatles

  2. Led Zeppelin

  3. The Rolling Stones

  4. U2

  5. Pink Floyd

It’s tough, very tough, to keep it to five.

40

I respect other opinions, but I don’t really see how one can “objectively” find Queen the greatest rock band of all time. They’ve got many great songs, to be sure, but their catalog is pretty bloated and when their formula missed it was pretty bad. There are many other artists with similar or greater influence, consistency, and awesomeness.

Such as:
Bob Dylan
The Beatles
Led Zeppelin
The Clash
Pink Floyd

where I have weighted heavily towards influence and popularity over the more subjective idea of awesomeness.