Rank Your Top Ten Rock Bands

Cafe Society
21

Hey lots of non-band solo artists have been named. I would’ve included Kate Bush and Bowie in my list, for example, except I thought we were limiting our lists to bands, not solo artists?

22
  1. Husker Du
  2. The Replacements
  3. The Beatles
  4. The Clash
  5. XTC
  6. The Go-Betweens
  7. The Velvet Underground
  8. The Pogues
  9. Sleater-Kinney
  10. R.E.M.
23
  1. Nirvana
  2. PJ Harvey
  3. Big Star
  4. Beatles
  5. X-Ray Spex
  6. Radiohead
  7. Pink Floyd
  8. Pixies
  9. The Velvet Underground
  10. R.E.M.
24

Kate Bush and David Bowie are ineligibile, as are the Beastie Boys (don’t use guitar often enough to qualify as a rock band).

25

TOMY

  1. The Clash
  2. Radiohead
  3. The Beatles
  4. Pink Floyd
  5. U2
  6. The Smiths
  7. The Doors
  8. Talking Heads
  9. Rolling Stones
  10. Love
26
  1. Aerosmith
  2. Fleetwood Mac
  3. Tool
  4. The Beatles
  5. Oasis
  6. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
  7. Garbage
  8. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
  9. Live
  10. The Eagles
27
  1. Beatles
  2. King Crimson
  3. Frank Zappa
  4. Genesis (with Peter)
  5. Adrian Belew
  6. Ramones
  7. They Might be Giants
  8. “Weird” Al Yankovic
  9. Thin Lizzy
  10. Devo

Unclviny

28
  1. The Beatles
  2. Led Zeppelin
  3. The Who
  4. Pink Floyd
  5. Steely Dan (for a certain definition of ‘rock’)
  6. The Soft Boys
  7. The Smiths
  8. The B52s (first two albums)
  9. Frank Zappa (pretty much any of his bands)
  10. Thin Lizzy (for Live and Dangerous, possibly the best ‘live’ album ever’)

There are a bunch of bands I don’t care for (The Rolling Stones, Eagles, Van Halen) that should really be in the list, but I honestly I do prefer the B52s.

As personal favourites I’d put Doll by Doll and Holly and the Italians in there except there’s no chance anyone* else has ever heard of them.

*except Wordman :slight_smile:

29

Black Sabbath
Led Zeppelin
AC/DC
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Aerosmith
The Who
Alice Cooper
Beatles
Rolling Stones
Pink Floyd

30
  1. The Rolling Stones
  2. The Beatles
  3. The Byrds
  4. The Who
  5. The Kinks
  6. The Velvet Underground
  7. Neil Young with Crazy Horse
  8. The Clash
  9. R.E.M
  10. The Band

This was hard to do. I combined personal taste with importance and influence of the bands to compile my list. If the OP would allow to include solo artists, my list would look very different, since I think some of the greatest artist in Rock did their stuff predominantly solo (think of Elvis(both), Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and so on).

31

Hmm. While I agree that Kate Bush and David Bowie are not bands, I’d disagree that the Beastie Boys are not Rock. Even within your guitar definition: they’ve done a lot more than “Fight for Your Right to Party.”

32

I’d tell you to Shut Up, but that is Holly’s job.

33

and WreckingCrew.

Anyone else?

34
  1. Queen
  2. Marillion
  3. Pink Floyd
  4. Metallica
  5. Jethro Tull
  6. Black Sabbath
  7. Alice Cooper
  8. The Beatles
  9. Wall of Voodoo
  10. Rush
35

You guys are killing me. I gotta tell my bassist (who was in Holly & the Italians back in London in the 80’s, for those of you not in on the joke…) he got name-checked.

I could never do a list like this - my brain would explode from constantly updating the rankings…

36
  1. Naked City
  2. Uncle Tupelo
  3. The Pretty Reckless
  4. Bad Brains
  5. Josie and the Pussycats
  6. Lillix
  7. The Fiery Furnaces
  8. Blur
  9. Avril Lavigne
  10. Landscape
37

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?

38
  1. The Beatles
  2. The Rolling Stones
  3. The Who
  4. The Master’s Apprentices (Aussie band from the 60s)
  5. Led Zeppelin
  6. Pink Floyd
  7. The Pixies
  8. Neutral Milk Hotel
  9. The Ramones
  10. The Eagles
39
  1. Rush
  2. Cowboy Mouth
  3. U2
  4. Queen
  5. The Police
  6. Barenaked Ladies
  7. The Rolling Stones
  8. Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
  9. Everclear
  10. Emmet Swimming

The bottom half of that could easily be all switched around without my being upset.
There are a LOT of my favorites that wouldn’t make the list. Jill Sobule, for example, would be in #2 and fighting for #1. Same with Loudoun Wainwright III. But they don’t qualify.

40

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.

ETA and you might as well disqualify the Doors as they have no bass.