Greatest American Rock Band

[Centurion40]

A Pixies pit?  What happens there?  Somebody run up and apply black eyeliner to you a little too roughly?

[Centurion40]

you ventured as far north at Orlando?!?!  Are you trying to become a Yankee or something?

[Centurion40]

Please don't think I'm just some Eagles fanboi; I'm just trying to recognize that as "great" American bands go, they're at the top of the conversation with not a lot of peers.

Yep.

[Centurion40]

given the choice between the Eagles, KISS and Van Halen I'd take Van Halen any day.

Yep.  Went to Vegas to see 'em back in '12.

[GDS_Starfury]

A Pixies pit?  What happens there?  Somebody run up and apply black eyeliner to you a little too roughly?

while I understand that 'Here Comes Your Man' is the only song of theirs your familiar with there is a lot of harder music in their collection.

[Centurion40]

The more I ponder it, the more I feel the need to change my vote to the Eagles.  Add to that, the individual musical contributions of Eagles members Glenn Fry, Don Henley, Joe Walsh, and Don Felder... well, it's tough to think of an American band that can match them.

[Gusington]

Just don't mention Glenn Frey's mid 80s solo stuff...loke Smugglers Blues -shudder-

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

A Pixies pit?  What happens there?  Somebody run up and apply black eyeliner to you a little too roughly?

while I understand that 'Here Comes Your Man' is the only song of theirs your familiar with there is a lot of harder music in their collection.

I'm sure they do an absolutely riveting cover of "It's Raining Men".

[BanzaiCat]

The heat is on...

(sax solo)

[Gusington]

Yeah man, that exactly.

[Martok]

And while I am at it, Metallica easily crushes The Eagles using those three criteria.  They invented a genre of music, thrash.  They can charge just as much, if not more, for concert tickets than The Eagles.  AND, as a going concern, have recorded and released more albums for longer than Henley and his boys.

Now that those poseurs have been dealt with...what do we do with KISS?

I was wondering when Metallica was going to be mentioned.  I figured they had to be sooner or later.  If the choice for "greatest" were between them, KISS, and the Eagles, then Metallica gets my vote easily. 


But my personal favorite group is almost certainly Alice In Chains.  8) 

[BanzaiCat]

So does "rock greatness" equate to being the first to help shape/define a genre or niche of that music?

In other words...whomever did it first, does that necessarily make them greater than the bands that follow in their wake?

I'm meaning something like, for example, the grunge movement. Nirvana, Alice in Chains...I remember the story of how the Warrant front man saw the writing on the wall, literally, when one day his record company's studios had the Cherry Pie album poster in the waiting area, then the next, it was Alice In Chains. There were a slew of bands after that, which helped define the genre, and of course that spun off more angles and experimentation.

But when you think of the "greatest bands," oftentimes it's one that started something. I'm saying that just because a band did it first, or was one of the first, doesn't mean they're necessarily the best.

[MetalDog]

Ok.  So I intend to reply to B_C's post about being first.  I want to put forward Sabbath as an example.  I know they aren't American, but, they are the archetype for metal.  I think Metallica has surpassed them and Iron Maiden has at least drawn even and those three bands were going to be the support for first not always being best.

Now.  As the Internet often does, it rewards your stream of consciousness searches and this is how it went:

1)  I wanted to impress upon everyone how Ozzy and the boys started in the hippie hey day.  I just couldn't remember the year Black Sabbath and Paranoid came out.  So I went to the Sabbath Wiki (it's 1970 for both, by the way).

2)  While scanning the Wiki, I saw the lineup of singers from the 80's and 90's after they fired Ozzy.  Ian Gillan, of Deep Purple fame, made one album with BS called Born Again.

3)  So I follow the Born Again Wiki link and read that the tour for said album featured these giant Stonehenge plinths, famously lampooned inThis Is Spinal Tap.

4)  I see that 'Trashed,' a song I liked, was the first track of the album and I go to Youtube to hear the song.  I find a listing for 'The Official Video,' and as the screen capture looks sufficiently 80's, I pick that one and discover...


...pure AWESOME!!!!!!

[GDS_Starfury]

youre such a hippy.

[GDS_Starfury]

we should start a Grogheads band and call it Crusted Sock.