A Newsvine Experiment: Who Are The Top 10 Greatest Bands of All Time?

Rage Against The Machine. They brought revolutionary anger to the masses,
and publicised such groups as The Zapatistas, and helped raise awareness of the plight of Leonard Peltier.

-Dave

Ramones
The Clash
The Rolling Stones
AC/DC
The Cure

Do your homework, folks.

The Velvet Underground.

Without the VU, there would be no punk, no glam, no grunge, no alternative, no techno. Modern Rock begins there.

R.E.M., who spurred the alternative/indie/college rock genre.

And I have to second Velvet Underground.

In January 1980 Michael Stipe met Peter Buck in an Athens record store the latter worked in. The pair discovered they shared similar tastes in music, particularly punk rock and protopunk artists like Patti Smith, Television, and The Velvet Underground; Stipe said, "It turns out that I was buying all the records that he was saving for himself."

Um, yep.

Good point, Dennis.

Ooooh yeah Velvet Underground!
Nine Inch Nails

Yes, R.E.M. were certainly influenced by VU, but that doesn't mean they're not an important band in their own right. R.E.M. have done their fair share of influencing modern bands, as well.

Yeah, they're important.

My point though is that nobody is as influential as the VU.

REM cites the VU as their major influence. Nine Inch Nails? Their major influence is Bowie, who also cites the VU as his major influence. The Punk movement in the US and the UK are directly traceable to the VU. Some people argue that you can trace the origins of Heavy Metal to the Stooges and the MC5, and guess who they cite as their influence....

And so on...

Who cares who influenced who Dennis? Everyone was influenced by someone. LOL It seems to me that you are preaching to the choir...you don't have to convince me of the virtue of VU ;-)

I was responding to Jace's comment.

Well this list isn't for "who's the most influential." Some people would tie it in to greatness, sure, but for some greatness is purely based on quality of music. For others, it's longevity.

Also, it's not like Lou Reed wrote in a vaccuum. He had influences too and going by this metric that would make those artists greater than him.

Thousands upon thousands of bands have made really great music. So what makes some stand out above all others? Influence. Those that changed the course of musical history, influencing all who came after them.

Sure, Lou had influences. Blues, Jazz, Doo Wop. But the stuff he and Cale created transcended all of that. They broke a lot of new ground; invented entirely new genres. They laid the groundwork for virtually everything that came after. There's a reason why more than 6000 artists and bands have covered their songs.

I was responding to Jace's comment.

Oops my facetiousness got the best of me... You're absolutely right the greatest bands having the most influence.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't shoot! I just want to make it clear that I'm a huge Velvet Underground fan and I definitely think they belong on the list. But since Dennis had already nominated them, I decided to suggest someone different. I'm not saying R.E.M. are better/more original/more influential than VU, just that maybe they deserve a spot in the top 10...(instead of The Police, perhaps?)

Would NIN be disqualified because Reznor is pretty much a one man band? I mean he hires others for concerts but NIN is basically just him...

Bob Dylan

Elvis Presley

I think, I may have over looked the greatest of the great

Johnny Cash

Pink Floyd
Radiohead
Eels
The Beatles

Do your homework, folks.

The Velvet Underground.

Without the VU, there would be no punk, no glam, no grunge, no alternative, no techno. Modern Rock begins there.

Indeed; that's all I have to say regarding that. Personally, I would nominate The Clash though.

Ween

I think it is VERY important to distinguish solo artists from bands on this poll - which would disqualify Elvis, Tom Petty, Dolly Parton, etc...

See, this is where it gets tricky....Tom Petty wasn't really a solo act, originally (and some of the earlier songs were recorded as) they were "Mudcrutch" then they became "Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers" but they were very much a band...they were, with a few changes, the same "Mudcrutch" Gainesville, and once christened Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, they didn't change a member till the late 80s-early 90s.

So at the point the singer leaves we make the distinction? Bad example: Matchbox 20 or Creed could be considered in this list but the career of their singers after leaving could not - Believe me when I say I would not put either of those bands on this list but the concept carries over.

Except, that the singer left and Tom Petty took over as singer, not the other way around. It was, for a long time, a tradition to call an act so and so and his band, like Frank Zappa and The Mother's of Invention, or Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band (the last one is a bit too lose to be considered a single band). Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers is the same band as Mudcrutch except Tom Petty sings and they might be down a keyboarder or something. If Matchbox 20, rebranded themselves "Rob Thomas and the Matchboxes" it would still be the same band and it would still not be a solo act.

So there's a difference in naming the band after the singer while it is still a 'band' and a solo act that has a backing band such as Jimi Hendrix and The Experience. (?) Elvis therefore being a solo act, Tom Petty and the Hearbreakers being a band, Jimi Hendrix being different incarnations of both either voting on The Jimi Hendrix Expereince (or any other incarnation of his 'band') or Hendrix himself as a guitar player.

That's my position.

Van Halen, The Police, Genesis, and The Eagles need to go. Although they were all great in their own right, each of those groups followed on the heels of other bands who paved the way.

Nirvana, The Rolling Stones, Radiohead, and Jimi Hendrix need to be on that list. Innovation and greatness is just rampant in these bands.

This list is also very one-sided, sounds like the daily round up on any classical rock station... what about metal? (sabbath) new wave? (talking heads) funk? punk? garage?

2 other honorable mentions: red hot chili peppers and the white stripes. Still going strong, already have a wealth of creative and gorgeous material.

Definitely no gripes with the beatles, led zepp or pink floyd!

Van Halen, The Police, Genesis, and The Eagles need to go. Although they were all great in their own right, each of those groups followed on the heels of other bands who paved the way.

Just curious, but who paved the way for The Police? They blended a couple different styles into a sound all their own. I can't think of another band that sounded like them before or after...

Oh, half a dozen reggae bands, throw in some 10CC, and there you are. I liked the Police, played quite a few of their tunes, but once Sting decided he was gonna do a Van Dyke Parks imitation and get all philosophical, I sorta threw them overboard.

Oh, half a dozen reggae bands, throw in some 10CC, and there you are.

Ok, so you're saying there were like a combination of reggae band and 10CC? Not sure I see how that doesn't make them unique in their own right...I mean, really, EVERY band was preceded by other bands that paved the way, right?

The E Street Band
(Bruce Springsteen)

Little 10cc story. They used to mess around with a doodad called a Gizmo, or Gizmotron. Apparently invented by Godley and Creme, the prototype was built by my friend Sarah's dad.

Sarah, who was a little girl at the time, plays the guitar, so they gave her a very nice Fender Strat as a gift. She recently had it valued, $15-20k! Very nice thank you very much.

"John McConnell, then a senior lecturer in Physics at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) assisted Godley and Creme in the development of the prototype. He considered it critical that the instrument retain the natural decay of a note rather than the sharp cut-off often experienced with an electronic synthesizer."

Cool story about the Gizmo. I used to use an Eventide delay. Long ago, after hearing an interview on WNEW in NYC, I befriended Larry Fast, who did keyboards for Rick Wakeman and played on the early Gabriel albums. Based on that friendship, I began my infatuation with Robert Fripp, Brian Eno, MIDI and processed sound.

Dude. Tom mother@!$%#ing Waits.

-Dave

2.12 – Right. Look at it this way: The Sex Pistols were influential (what's the saying about everyone who attended one of their early gigs went on to start their own punk band?) but were they great? I say no, which is what sparked this flap when I said they were overrated. I think you definitely need to drop kick Genesis off that list and replace that crap with the Clash.

2.12 – Right. Look at it this way: The Sex Pistols were influential (what's the saying about everyone who attended one of their early gigs went on to start their own punk band?)

The saying you're thinking of was talking about The Ramones, not The Sex Pistols who came later and were manufactured by Malcolm. They were a novelty (although they did have 1 good album...)