Put another way, we’ve structured it this way because we want a tournament, not a battle royale.

I’d like to keep the sniping focused, as much as possible.

Any chance you could post a list of who is in this tournament, not necessarily the rankings or pods just a list, say alphabetical maybe?

I’m curious what bands gripe you. The roster you put up is a decent tournament, and more than a few bother me but I can live with it. What bands on the list gripe Jim would also be an interesting question, and I wish Jim would respond.

Jeff

MBV may have gotten my vote if this was mostly about “influence.” But the one album I have by these guys drives me in-freaking-sane. It sounds like a cat was sitting on the tape deck taking swipes at the wheels during recording. I’m half convinced that the CD I have was warped in the sun or something, but Slammy insists that’s how it’s SUPPOSED to sound. Bah! But bands I really DO like, like Space Team Electra and Tresspassers William and Rob Dickinson, would probably be a whole lot different without them.

As for J”C”M, Jack and Diane has been a favorite song of mine since it came out and I’m pretty sure it will always get me singing when it comes on the radio until the day I die. It may not be his “best” song, but there’s something about it that I find infectious as hell. Just based on that one song, I bought every one of his albums and haven’t been disappointed yet. Even the later stuff is good, if not better. Dance Naked was fun as hell. But…

Ultimately, I had to go with Sarah. Fumbling nearly brought me to tears when I first heard it and I subsequently played it to death. I believe Lilith Fair had an immeasurably huge impact on a whole generation of female artists. I bet we really won’t know how much of an impact for another 10-20 years.

And you’re doing a great job! This is going to be a hoot, all right. Ignore all whining, including mine.

The are a number of acts here that gripe me to no end, but in the interest of letting the people have a say we solicited input and then went with most of the nominees. At that point the list began to grow. So if when all is said and done you take a look at the top 48 seeds, I think you’ll respect our efforts quite a bit. You may not agree with all our picks, but at least it will be clear that we know a little about the history and majesty of rock.

Some of the non-seeds – hey, let the people have fun….

Yeah, Darrell, there’s a great deal of enlightened-redneck to Mellencamp. And he does capture the flavor of tractors, rusty pickups, farms and long two lane blacktop through the middle of nowhere.

I’ve seen a few bands/artists so far that i really don’t like and would not put in a tournament like this were i organizing it. But i’m not organizing it. Jim and Sam must have wrestled with this thing pretty seriously to shape it. (that’s especially applicable to the Clapton incarnation situation) I’m glad that they did because it’s a hoot so far and it’s only going to get better. Ergo, i’m sure as shit not going to criticize them on the details.

2: Misogynyst? Well, she wrote songs where women were certainly in a certain amount of peril, but I’m not sure I think that writing about something makes you an advocate of it. If so, then Shakespeare would be the biggest proponent of murder and mayhem in history. As for “creepy,” that doesn’t bother me. Great art often makes us uneasy. I promise you, if you dislike her music because it’s creepy, then you’d think I’m the worst poet who ever lived.

3: DCD is indeed talented as hell, and I like a lot of bands in that general genre. (Boy do I have some great dark ambient stuff in my collection.) But you’re right, they’re not rock by a long shot. This is the one potential challenge to SM, as Darrell notes. She’s singer-songwriterish and leans to the folky side of the field. Still, looking through the list of participants, it’s not like everybody is a headbanger. Take Dylan, for instance, or Van Morrison, or James Taylor. I know these arguments are there to be had, but we sort of adopted a policy of inclusion and are trusting the audience to vote their consciences.

And I like Dead Can Dance–I just wouldn’t put them in a list of rock groups, although they have certainly had influence, and they had lots of drums, which seems to be what determines these things. Really, I’m just surprised. It would never have occurred to me to include her in a list of rock legends (or potentials). Everyone else so far, whatever their other relative merits, you could at least say fit under that rubric. You would have done better with Dar Williams or Sara Hickman–who don’t belong here either, but who at least are hugely gifted songwriters and who occasionally rock. I’ll shut up now.

She had significant popular success, was well regarded by critics, has been extremely influential and significant from an industry perspective (think Lilith Faire here), and the quality of her work has been outstanding (although I will admit that I haven’t been blown away by her last couple releases).

Now, anybody can stand around and holler about “how can you include her?” and “your cred just slipped,” and that’s all quite safe and easy. How about you telling me WHY she DOESN’T belong here. That way we both have our cards showing.

As for the real groups here, Mellencamp is good, yes, and so was Mott. But Cream defined the power trio (even the excesses), and it’s seldom been equaled.