Best band in HISTORY!!!! ROCK ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

POSTED BY: jameron4eva
UPDATED: Friday, December 18, 2009 08:13
VIEWED: 13486
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AC/DC Has the second best selling album in the WORLD,("Back in Black", with over 200 million units sold, and Kwicko never even mentions them! What's up with that man? I mean you have the masterfully energetic Angus Young on the lead guitar, his brother Malcom is his back up, Phil Rdd on the drums, BOTH Brian Johnson, and Mister BON "FRIGGIN'" SCOTT, ( R.I.P.), And you don't have them on your list? Man they were the most influential in the 80's, they have produced multiple hit albums, here in the US, and internationally, they have had a major sound change in the vox department, AND ARE STILL GOING STRONG INTO 2010! So why aren't they on your list Kwicko? By the way, "Black Ice", is a GREAT album, it needs more sells.

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1) Are we basing "best" purely on number of sales? If so, bow down before Michael Jackson, the best band in the world. You seem to confuse "best" and "most popular". Look at the most popular student in your school. Is he or she THE BEST student, just by getting more votes (sales)?

2) I just never cared for AC/DC. I tried, I really did. I bought Powerage when it came out (I think it was their second or third album, Bon Scott was still alive and kicking, Brion Jones was still singing with some little outfit called "Geordie" or some such), and I found it derivative. It was the same old standard blues-rock that so many before had ground out, and that Zeppelin were still doing better than most. So I never found AC/DC to be that influential or that great. Sorry. Your mileage may vary.

You can feel free to include them on your list, though. I didn't list Queen, either, but I find them quite good AND quite influential. There's never been a pure rock singer with the chops of Freddie Mercury before, or since, and the band's harmonies were amazing, and to this day, nobody has figured out Brian May's guitar sound.

Heck, for that matter, I could list Les Paul and Mary Ford as the best band in history. After all, Les Paul gave us the electric guitar, multi-track recording, overdubbing of voices for a fuller chorus sound, etc. He did more for rock music than anyone, with the possible exceptions of Elvis (who popularized the form), The Beatles (who actually forced critics to accept that "rock and roll" could be ART), and Jimi Hendrix (who changed so much about the ideas of what a guitarist was and how feedback and effects in the studio could be used to explore sonic landscapes).

I also didn't list The Doors. Jim Morrison was something else entirely. He was Frank Sinatra, if Old Blue Eyes had just returned from the Manson Family Picnic. At his heart, he was a crooner, a romantic, a singer of tortured torch songs, a poet, a prophet, and amused to be a muse. Ray Manzarek channelled Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht and pushed it all through a mad-calliope swirling, whirling organ, while Robbie Krieger tried to ground the band in some kind of reality, but usually ended up going off on his own fantastic tangents, all while seeming to keep the band on track and on course - no matter where that course might take them!

See? You make your own list, of the music that matters. What's the stuff that you'd want to have on a desert island if you were marooned? Find your ten "desert island discs", but be careful about some of the newer ones, because you might find that they're just a flash in the pan.

I don't care for that much of Bruce Springsteen's work, but I'd hate to have to go long without hearing the entire "Born To Run" album. It's important enough TO ME (note: it's important TO ME, but may not do a thing FOR YOU) that I've bought it three times on vinyl, twice on cassette, and I'm currently on my fourth copy of the CD. If I gank a copy off Limewire for my iTunes collection, do you think they'll come after me for the royalties? :)
For all that, I know people who can't stand that record. I married one of them!

The Clash: Certainly important, clearly influential.
Green Day: Not so much. They're cute, and their music is fine, but I refer to them as "BubblePunk"; they aren't real punk. Listen t

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Originally posted by dmaanlileiltt:
I would say that The Beatles (because how can you not), The Who (because Townshend was a damn good songwriter, Daltrey was a damn good singer and Entwhistle and Moon were damn good rhythmists), The Clash (you want variety London Calling has it in shitloads), AC/DC (because they have sold a more than a few albums), Pink Floyd (say what you want David Gilmour was a fucking brilliant guitarist and singer), Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton (both amazing musicians), and maybe Aerosmith or The Rolling Stones or Guns 'N Roses (just to cover that section) as probably the most important rock n roll bands and musicians. But I would probably also count some of the blues legends like Robert Johnson.

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Agreed on The Who - good points. Ditto The Clash. Pink Floyd I loved, but only with Waters. Gilmour and Waters NEED each other; they don't work nearly as well without each other, like Johnny Marr and Morrissey. :)

Clapton, I hesitate, just because he can be so hit and miss. I love some of his work, but a huge amount of it just bores me. His 1979 double live album, "Just One Night", is in my estimation one of the very best live albums ever recorded. The songs are songs you've heard before ("Lay Down Sally", "Wonderful Tonight", "Cocaine", etc.), but never with this kind of energy. He did do some rather amazing guitar work on Roger Waters's "The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking" album, just after Waters left Pink Floyd. It's some of my favorite of Clapton's work, I think because Waters was probably pushing him to a peak of creativity Clapton himself might otherwise not push as hard for.

G-n-R, I'll give a grudging nod. They actually spurred my interest back into the SoCal rock scene, after plastic acts like Poison and Motley Crue had ruined the hard rock genre for me in the early 80s. G-n-R had a gritty viciousness that assuaged my angry inner punk, and they had the hard edge that appealed to my headbanging metal-head side as well.

And yes, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Guitar Slim, John Lee Hooker, Albert King, Buddy Guy... all those guys are high up in the pantheon, because without them, acts like Clapton, the Stones, Zeppelin, AC/DC, and even The Beatles wouldn't have had any music to learn on!

Mike

Work is the curse of the Drinking Class.
- Oscar Wilde

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