Peace. I thought that was what we were discussing per the OP.
I was addressing someone who said they had never heard an LP of theirs and didn’t think they were important, not trying to force them on you.
Look at the bands cited here over this thread. The Mats belong in the mix as much as 90% of them. (To me they are top 5 all time at least) I brought them up because so many names were coming up that would not have been bands if not for the Replacements. It’s a dialogue. You know, a forum?
IMO, The Doors are the greatest.
But it’s hard to be specific. “Rock Band”? That’s very hard to define with any certain specifity and it’s a real shame to argue about small details when I’m guessing the OP wants to praise great music and great bands. Many of the issues people have raised in this thread (and argued about) are certainly valid. I’m not sure how you can resolve these arguments and that’s a real shame. It’s pretty difficult to lay out an exact question that only has one answer.
Maybe it would be good to specify a few different bands and attach your opinion together with one of their greatest tunes. In that way, people might still quarrel but it could be a lot more fun if we could listen to other people’s opinions together with their chosen example.
I would just like to ask the OP why specify “greatest American band”? There are so many other bands who make music that become part and parcel of the American rock scene and so many of them are truly superb. Why exclude them? Some people are crazy for The Stones and other bands from GB. I love AC/DC and I truly believe that if I was stranded on that desert island (you know - the one with Marilyn Monroe (I mean … Shit! It’s my fantasy after all), I could probably live happily ever after with Marilyn and all of AC/DC’s music. Really. I think that is just about all I would need to die happy.
I would like it if they had made just a little more music. Compared to other bands, it seems like they only made about 50% or 75% as many tunes as other bands did. But that is an argument for another day. Today, I will go to sleep and dream about Marilyn.
Yeah. Problem is, I don’t like Westerberg’s singing voice, it does nothing for me.
You’re saying English rock bands in the 80s were not that great?:dubious:
I am all about dialogue - I’ve been hear awhile and post to lots of music threads. The issue is that the Replacements are a great, great band, but are so obviously missing a few key elements, notably huge crossover popularity, and genre-creating influence, to be ever considered seriously. And Paul would point to Big Star before him anyway 
Charlie Wayne - yep, the Band requirement of the OP is interesting because of this weird US/UK Dichotomy. Elvis, Chuck Berry, Hendrix the individual (since he CAN’T be considered part of an American Band), Michael Jackson (pop R&B more than rock) - it is simply something interesting to consider given the band-centric UK approach. It says something, but I am not sure what.
I’ma disagree with you on a major point. Of the three criteria here, fame and success are the least important, to me anyway, and I hope to music lovers.
The Replacements didn’t make Eagles, or Kiss money, and didn’t make nirvana or Pearl Jam money either (Or stone temple pilots or Goo Goo Dolls…) . They are quite famous for that. That was kind of a feature of the 80s alt thing and not a bug. The Sex Pistols didn’t sell records either, BTW.
But in terms of influence and genre: they were the most significant band to make “punk” become “alternative.” The road to Nirvana popularity was paved and trod by the Mats above all other bands, if you recall. It wouldn’t have happened without them, not in that way. I just couldn’t let Kiss and Green day go by without citing the mats, just as a music fan. It would be absurd. And for better or worse Big Star does not = Replacements. That’s just a song.
The band thing: Someone had the observation earlier that British national compulsory service skipped that generation, whereas Vietnam did a number on our band scenes.
Peace
I’m agree with you that outside of the mats he doesn’t handle a ballad well. The thing worked in the band for me. Do you really not like the rock singing on “Let It Be” for instance? Unsatisfied, sixteen blue, answering machine?
Yeah, I disagree. You are basically imputing the success of their Replacements by the success of whom they’ve influenced. I agree with that take on things, e.g., The Ramones didn’t have big success, but SO MANY bands came after them that had huge success that it reflects back on the Ramones. Cool.
But with the 'Mats, they aren’t that one, standout band. Look to a great book like Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life, and the whole point was that there were many bands that all ended up crescendoing with Nirvana at the shift from Indie to Alt.
I get the mention of them vs. Green Day and Kiss. The 'Mats carved their own path, for better and worse, in a way that holds up. And as for slower songs, his telling of Here Comes a Regular stops me every time.
Yeah not to hijack the thread but I do get excited. “Regular”…wow what a song. But I listened to the Besterberg last night and Pauls “Nowhere Man”? I just expect more from him. Maybe the mats was his format.
OK I’ll shut up.
As did Husker Du - in the same town and same era. Both bands would get my personal and biased vote. But for greatest American rock band meeting all criteria as listed in the OP - I’ll agree with many other posters that it’s the Beach Boys. So many other great bands have been mentioned in this thread, not least among them REM for body of work, but none quite had the same mass and enduring impact as did the Beach Boys. Not even the Ramones.
As a hardcore Deadhead, I always wince when someone calls them a “rock band,” or even “the greatest American rock band.”
Sure, they did some iconic rock songs – “New Minglewood Blues,” “Bertha” > “Good Lovin,’” “U.S. Blues,” and fine covers of Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry. But they were an astonishingly ECLECTIC band. Look at where they were coming from:
Jerry: Old timey string band stuff, folk, bluegrass
Pigpen: Blues
Phil: Avant-garde classical
Billy and Mickey: Jazz
All mixed together with a heapin’ helpin’ of LSD in the '60s, plus mountains of cocaine in the '70s and '80s.
Stir everything up and bring to a heady simmer, and you get a stew (Mason’s Children cooked a stew) that no one can really replicate. They were originals. Rock and roll was just the carrots in that stew.
It’s not the style of singing, it’s the actual voice. And it cuts across all his songs. Closest way I can put it is that, to me, he sounds like a bad Clash impersonator, all the time.
Ouch. That’s what I think of Rancid as being.
Westerberg was not into the Clash at all. He returned the (First) record I recall him saying. I can’t see any relationship whatsoever, but I don’t like the Clash.
Again, I’m not talking about the music…
Irrelevant for the point under consideration - his voice, not anything else, but his physical voice. Intonation, timbre, whatever the technical terms are, they get on my wick.
It’s the same reason I can’t stand the Ramones, Johnny Cash or Bob Dylan. Not that they sound the same, but I do not like how they do sound.
I wasn’t talking about the music either. The Rancid vocal style seems like a direct parody/copy of Joe Strummer, with the phlegmatic lowering of register at the end of lines. It’s very specific.
BTW, I’m sure that Paul said that he got the Pistols and Clash albums on the same day, and he returned the Clash record because “Joe could never sing.”
While I appreciate a good Paul Westerberg story, his dislike of The Clash doesn’t change how important The Clash were to the punk era - much more so vs. The Mats. I am not happy or sad about that, just trying to state the facts. I have room to love both The Clash and The Replacements, but The Clash were a much bigger deal in their day on a number of levels.
Ukulele Ike - as someone who is not a Dead fan, yeah, I would agree. They aren’t what I think of as a rock band at one end of the spectrum, just like Metallica are starting to edge out on the metal side of the spectrum.
I only report the story as needed here. The Clash certainly said they were a big deal. That was my first cue that there should be some doubt about that. They called themselves the only band that matters and tried to analogize themselves with Elvis and the Beatles etc. Their songs never made the case.
In the end there is only the songs.
Really? I mean, of course you are right that it all starts with the songs. But The Clash had them. You may personally disagree, but their chart success and their enduring reputation is not in question.
Well don’t get offended. This is just a free exchange of views, and I’m always willing to be schooled: To me they were self aggrandizing Bandwagon jumpers, and already passe by the time they were heard in the US. They had an overweening ambition to turn the London punk thing invented by the pistols and their audience, into stardom for themselves. I can’t name a great song by them. If you were to take their half decent tunes and start listing them you could put an immortal Mats tune next to each one and go on for days after you ran out of Clash songs.
I don’t have my billboard book right now but what are the great Clash chart songs? What are the great deep cuts? What was the competition? They had a lot pushing at them from behind other than talent: There was an industry that needed content and stories, and punk was the story and they were the survivors.
Rock the Casaba? Clampdown? I just find them completely unnecessary, boring, didactic, and repetitive. Joe’s singing didn’t help at all. Rotten couldn’t sing but sounded better.
OK I said it.
I’m not offended. I am just looking at the facts. You are welcome to not think much of The Clash, but I am not feeling the obligation to educate you. They charted much higher and much more consistently vs. The Replacements and their reputation hasn’t diminished. That is no slam on the Replacements - they are great - but you seem to want to slag The Clash and don’t have a case.
But we are discussing the greatest American rock band. It isn’t the Replacements, wonderful though they may be.