# Rank Your Top Ten Rock Bands **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 22, 2009, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793 "2009-10-22T23:18:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![scareyfaerie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scareyfaerie/32/3135_2.png) [@scareyfaerie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scareyfaerie)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/41 "2009-10-23T13:32:53Z")
1. Tyketto 2. Dokken 3. Aerosmith 4. Anvil 5. Firehouse 6. Poison 7. Motley Crue 8. Alice Cooper 9. Van Halen (with DLR) 10. Slayer ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/42 "2009-10-23T13:37:51Z")
1. Eligibility question: Steely Dan? Simon & Garfunkel? 2. Suggestion: Don’t score it 10 points for 1st, 9 for 2nd, etc. That gives too much weight to the top of the ballot and virtually none to the bottom. Being on a lot of ballots towards the bottom should be on relatively equal footing with being on a smaller number of ballots towards the top. If, instead of 10, you start counting at 15 or 20, then the down-ballot votes actually matter. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/43 "2009-10-23T13:51:45Z")
1. The Who\* 2. Pink Floyd 3. Led Zeppelin 4. The Beatles 5. Bruce Springsteen 6. The Eagles 7. Queen 8. The Animals 9. The Monkees 🙂 10. The Rolling Stones \*I would have put them at number 2 as well if it was allowed! ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/44 "2009-10-23T14:13:17Z")
Bloody hell. Scoring these things is impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/45 "2009-10-23T14:35:23Z")
1. The Beatles 2. The Faces 3. The Rolling Stones 4. The Who 5. The Allman Brothers Band 6. The Clash 7. Fleetwood Mac (Peter Green era) 8. Little Feat 9. Talking Heads 10. The Band ---
**Author:** ![Pray\_for\_peace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pray\_for\_peace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pray_for_peace)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/46 "2009-10-23T14:39:29Z")
Does it help to first count how often a group is mentioned (if included in a list, assign value of 1 no matter what the rank position is). Then take the top 10 or 20 most-mentioned bands, and rank those according to the formula you suggested originally, weighting by position in list. Then you don’t have to keep track of scoring for all of the bands that only got mentioned once. ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/47 "2009-10-23T14:39:52Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] Bloody hell. Scoring these things is impossible. [/QUOTE] Tricky, not impossible. A grep through the page text for “Beatles” gives you this: ```auto 4. The Beatles 5. Beatles 1. The Beatles 1. The Beatles 9. The Beatles 1. The Beatles 1. Beatles 3. The Beatles 1. The Beatles 7. The Beatles 3. The Beatles 3. The Beatles 4. Beatles 3. The Beatles 4. The Beatles 1. Beatles 1. The Beatles 2. The Beatles 8. The Beatles 2. The Beatles 1. The Beatles 4. The Beatles ``` Do that for each band (with more than one vote maybe?) and paste into a spreadsheet. I can’t help you with the spreadsheet I’m useless with them but it must be possible to sort and sum? Oh, now I see my Beatles stats are already out of date, good luck with your data processing. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/48 "2009-10-23T14:48:47Z")
> [@VarlosZ](#): > > 1. Eligibility question: Steely Dan? Simon & Garfunkel? Both eligible. Outkast are disqualified (from the previous page) incidentally. > [@](#): > > Do that for each band (with more than one vote maybe?) and paste into a spreadsheet. I can’t help you with the spreadsheet I’m useless with them but it must be possible to sort and sum? > > Oh, now I see my Beatles stats are already out of date, good luck with your data processing. I could do that but I’d still have to count the point totals by hand because _some_ people can’t read and their formatting is wrong, and I don’t want to disqualify anyone’s answers. What the heck is a grep, by the way? **Magiver** , you ranked Led Zeppelin _and_ the Stones as #4, so you had 11 bands in your list. I cut off Santana since he was eleventh. ---
**Author:** ![HongKongFooey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c4cdca/32.png) [@HongKongFooey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HongKongFooey)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/49 "2009-10-23T14:57:05Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Bloody hell. Scoring these things is impossible. Maybe you could get Dolores Reborn to PM you the feud scoring program. Not sure if you’ll be able to get it to weight the positions like you need to here but it’s worth having a look. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/50 "2009-10-23T15:22:55Z")
Aaagh! I have my top eight bands, and then about 20 bands vying for the final two slots… and they all deserve to be on the list. Well, here goes: 1. Beatles 2. King Crimson 3. Rolling Stones 4. Who 5. Jethro Tull 6. Pink Floyd 7. Led Zeppelin 8. Doors 9. Kinks 10. Grateful Dead ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Clanger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@Small\_Clanger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Clanger)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/51 "2009-10-23T15:23:21Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright] I could do that but I’d still have to count the point totals by hand because some people can’t read and their formatting is wrong, and I don’t want to disqualify anyone’s answers. What the heck is a grep, by the way? [/QUOTE] grep\* is a Unix pattern matching tool: \*\*grep “Beatles” rockbands.txt \*\*gave me pretty much the list in my post. I wrote a macro to comma delimit the rank numbers from the band name loaded that into a spreadsheet and wrote a formula to get a score, that’s the limit of my spreadsheet skills and it’s only part way to doing the whole job but I’m sure there are people here who can help you with that. Anyone who has posted an unformatted list should re-post if they want their votes counted, doing it by hand will mean you miss Christmas (or Thanksgiving, whatever). - there’s a Windows version [here](http://www.wingrep.com/download.htm) but that’s not what I used. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/52 "2009-10-23T15:31:15Z")
> [@parthenokinesis](#): > > Why is Bowie inelegible? He has experimented with some non-rock forms, but even taking them out of his catalog, he has had a significant rock presence. Ziggy Stardust alone puts him in my top ten. Because he’s not a band. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/53 "2009-10-23T15:32:17Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Chuck Berry would be eligible. He had a pretty conventional backing band, right? Again, solo artists are allowed as long as they recorded with a generic 5 (ish) piece band. > > Yeah, but what, one song per album? I can’t think of any other guitar-based BB songs other than Sabotage (although admittedly I’m not a big fan anyway). Their sound is _usually_ based around drum machines, turntables and synthesizers, yes? Their \*hit \*songs. There is no shortage of guitar on their albums. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/54 "2009-10-23T15:33:20Z")
doesn’t really matter now… I’ve counted all of page 1 by hand already. I’ll cut off voting at the end of this page. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/55 "2009-10-23T15:42:41Z")
1. The Who 2. Queen 3. The Beatles 4. Led Zeppelin 5. The Rolling Stones 6. The Eagles 7. The Doors 8. The Cure 9. Eraserheads (90’s Filipino band) 10. The Carpenters ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/56 "2009-10-23T15:47:35Z")
1. The Who 2. Beatles 3. Pink Floyd 4. Todd Rundgren 5. XTC 6. Jeff Beck 7. Deep Purple 8. Peter Frampton 9. Fountains of Wayne 10. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers 11. Yes Selection criteria: these are the ones I’ve listened to most in the past 5 years or so. ---
**Author:** ![HongKongFooey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c4cdca/32.png) [@HongKongFooey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HongKongFooey)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/57 "2009-10-23T15:49:25Z")
Beastie Boys can definitely rock: [Egg Raid On Mojo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsOireRXVmU). ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/58 "2009-10-23T15:53:58Z")
Oh, alright, you can have the Beastie Boys. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Buttons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@Mr\_Buttons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Buttons)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/59 "2009-10-23T16:10:09Z")
1. The Beatles 2. Red Hot Chili Peppers 3. Smashing Pumpkins 4. Tool 5. Led Zeppelin 6. Nirvana 7. Aerosmith 8. Tom Petty 9. Guns n’ Roses 10. KMFDM ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2009, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793/60 "2009-10-23T16:45:02Z")
1. Pink Floyd 2. Beatles 3. Slowdive 4. Yes 5. The Church 6. Bruce Springsteen & The East Street Band 7. Byrds 8. Doors 9. Santana 10. Barclay James Harvest [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/rank-your-top-ten-rock-bands/514793.md?page=4)