Comments on: Coming soon – Tournament of Rock II: The Legends; nominate your choice for greatest band of all time

By: Dowson

Dowson — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:12:22 +0000

This is all pointless we all know The Beatles are the best that ever where and ever will be!

By: james

james — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:47:21 +0000

bad company,

By: james

james — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:46:47 +0000

bowie, iggy pop?

By: Darrell

Darrell — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:45:48 +0000

See how she starts it!

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:04:56 +0000

Husker Du was incredibly important, but they just had zero in the way of commercial awareness.

By: wufnik

wufnik — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:27:08 +0000

Oh, I agree, they do have to be there. Does that make a Husker Du fan a blend of the two, btw? And of course, they both fulfill the one further thing that I left off my list, by accident– you have to be able to dance to it. (Whoops–here come the angry King Crimson fans, followed by the Dead Can Dance horde.) And perhaps the most important thing of all (as pointed out by Joey Ramone)–your parents should hate it. I don’t know if you can actually make that a criterion, though–it’s just sort of understood, I guess. Drives my daughter crazy when I’m swapping CDs with her boyfriend.

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:10:13 +0000

It would be irresponsible to leave either the Pistols or Ramones off. Punk is a weird category, though – it really requires you to place musicianship WAY the hell down the list of what matters. A punk fan is, in many ways, the opposite of a Phish fan.

By: wufnik

wufnik — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:05:29 +0000

And Bouncing Round the Room IS a great song.

By: wufnik

wufnik — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:02:54 +0000

Ah. Actually, these’ aren’t necessarily in order of importance–my bad. In my own convoluted calculus of these things, these recieve, I suppose, different weightings depending. I guess I assume all these criteria are necessary in varying degrees–none in and of themselves is sufficient, except maybe influence. Greg Allman has written a couple of pretty good songs–but that’s not what we tthink of when The Allman Brothers comes to mind–most of their good stuff was written by someone else. The Mothers of Invention wrote lazy songs, and it would be difficult to actually call them a rock band. But they were definitely a band, of some sort, and had enormous influence. What one does with The Fugs is anyone’s guess–but I would submit they were one of the most influential bands ever. But I would be surprised to see them on the list. Then there’s Manfred Mann, sixties pop guy who put out Somewhere in Afrika in the 1980s, still one of the best albums ever. Does he make the list on the basis of that? Probably not. A perfect album that had practically no impact on anything (although it did have one of the great guitar solos). So it’s a mix of these things. I was never a big fan of the Sex Pistols (Ramones without the humour)–the songs were crap, and the music worse–but we keep talking about them decades later, don’t we? Do they make the list? I’m looking forward to finding out.

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 14:14:10 +0000

Ann and D: Now, now, you two. Don’t make me lock you in a room with “Hey Mickey” on endless loop.

Wuf: If we did a greatest solos, we’d need Rafael Ravenscroft’s sax from “Baker Street” and Skink Baxter’s guitar from “Reelin’ in the Years.” But let’s not get started down that road. I will ask a serious question – if you have songwriting as the alpha criterion, how can you even TALK about Phish? That would be like me prioritizing musicianship and then nominating The Sex Pistols.

By: wufnik

wufnik — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:09:48 +0000

And just to kick up a ruckus, I would throw Journey in there just on the basis of the Junior Walker sax solo in Urgent. Or there should be a separate list only for “great solos”. Or something.

By: wufnik

wufnik — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:02:48 +0000

Lex–I guess I would just say that this all depends on criteria. Well, that’s obvious. Duh. So let me try it this way–what counts for me is (1) songwriting ability, (2) playing ability, (3) longevity (more than one album–any list that put Blind Faith in there would therefore be suspect), (4) an occasional hit (the Dead did have one top-ten hit, as I recall), and (5) influence. This last one is the most problematic, because it may be the hardest to assess. And it tends to favour earlier bands of the 1960s and 1970sd rather than, say, banks of the last decade. Of course, all of these are to some degree problematic, and you can weigh each one differently.. The occasional hit, for example. Would this keep the band that played to more people in history than any other band off the list if they hadn’t had one? Similarly for Phish–how many people have they played to? As opposed to, say The Eagles? OTOH, the Eagles certainly have had more hits than Phish. So you go looking for something else. Of course, these may be the wrong criteria entirely. That’s the point–people are going to have a broad range of criteria, and they can be selective (and not very consistent, as we’ll see). But it’s all fun, and, interestingly, people get quite passionate about all of this. Maybe there’s another way to do this–instead of my proving to you tthat Phish belongs to a list of the 96 greatest rock bands, I ask you to name 96 bands that are better. How’s that? If each decade has only four or five or six great bands, you might get halfway there!

By: Darrell

Darrell — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:48:19 +0000

Ann:

Perhaps you need to go back and re-read the posts, I think your the one missing things here. Maybe you’re too busy crafting your next big “witty zinger” to actually be paying attention. I can’t wait for the next article when you post “First!”

By: Darrell

Darrell — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:00:07 +0000

Ann:

“Darrell, I think your view of “generation-spanning” is demonstrably limited.”

Maybe you didn’t read my post. I started following music in the 80’s, that’s where I started my time line. I stated that “I’ll let others make the case for the Beatles and Zep etc”. I don’t think any of the bands I chose will win, and I could have chosen a bunch of bands in previous decades, but I chose bands that I grew up with, and that I felt were the greatest of their time with respect to the guidelines and some additional criteria. I get to witness young people picking up instruments and playing rock music all the time. The bands I chose all have songs that kids play all the time, so the bands I chose absolutely spanned a generation. Do they play music prior to the 1980’s? Absolutely, but I chose to pick acts that I was alive to witness when music mattered most to me. I could have very well picked all the standards, but why waste the space when I know most of them will already be included.

By: Lex

Lex — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:20:53 +0000

Really, Phish? Don’t get me wrong. They’re all fine musicians; i saw them 15 times or so – including the Quadrophenia Halloween show – back in the 90’s and i enjoyed every one. I just don’t think that they break the top 96.

I saw the Dead (w/ Garcia) 35+ times, and while i’d call them the quintessential American music band and a really great live rock band, i wouldn’t have been surprised to have them not included on this list. One of the issues is the available body of work. I could point to era’s, shows, particular examples of songs to exemplify how good they were…but i couldn’t say, “buy this album”. (discounting releases like Dick’s Picks which aren’t really albums) The same goes for Phish.

Even a band like GNR, who i consider to have produced only one great album, seems more appropriate (to me)…if only because you’ll actually hear that album. Chances are that i won’t hear “Rocket Queen” or “My Michelle” on the radio, but the chances are still higher than hearing a “Samson and Delilah” (c. ‘77) or a “Truckin>Other One>NFA>Other One” in my daily life.

And i’m really “just sayin”, because i A. trust Sam and Jim to put together an interesting bracket and B. realize that you could argue inclusion until the end of time.

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:33:10 +0000

D: Agreed. Completely. I’m just thinking in terms of the contest, which isn’t really designed to answer any eternal critical questions. The question at this stage isn’t about the diff between RS and The Beatles, it’s more about the diff between RS and, say, Paul Simon.

By: Darrell

Darrell — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:27:23 +0000

Sam: To be clear the ones I put at the bottom were ones that I thought just missed out based on my criteria. I’m not saying someone wouldn’t want their success or money, but If I had a choice to form a perfect band and model it after some other band, I would choose the one with the perfect blend of street cred, commercial success, inspiration, and timeless music. I don’t think that RS, Bon Jovi, REO, Journey have all of those.

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:21:15 +0000

Oh, there IS one. We just don’t want to fight about it….

And you have to be at least an 18th level initiate to have that mystery revealed to you.

By: Ann Ivins

Ann Ivins — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:15:43 +0000

Oops. I really thought there was some kind of Jim’nSam Grand High Definition of Rock that I just didn’t know about.

In that case, I’m fine with the Duh Principle.

By: Dr. Slammy

Dr. Slammy — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:08:20 +0000

Ann: Gonna have to roll with the duh. As Justice Stewart said, “I’ll know it when I see it.” I COULD put together a nice, tight definition, but it would serve no purpose beyond starting an argument, I imagine. So my answer to this is to do what I’ve done – invite nominations and comments in advance. If it’s close enough for a plausible argument we’ll include it and let the jury decide.

I figure we’re in for enough of a shitstorm when we unveil the seedings, anyway…