It does seem weird that so many of the big ones for American music were solo artists. But lots of good picks here, Ramones, Talking Heads, Velvet Underground, Stooges, CCR, and others mentioned are really good choices. Wish I had someone overlooked to mention, but most any I'd pick have already been mentioned. I could maybe toss out a personal favorite like the Minutemen. I think they were both good, actually started to sound accessible on their last couple releases and were influential in their own way. If I liked all their albums as much as I liked the first two, I'd nominate Gun Club. I think including Nirvana in the argument is totally legit.

But yeah, I'd have to give something to the Motown groups. I guess since they were singing groups and not playing interments makes a difference, but The Temptations, Supremes, Booker T & the MGs are all great choices. I'd also toss out The Impressions, even without Curtis Mayfield's solo work, their stuff as a group was fantastic and the group also spawned another star in Jerry Butler.



I think these arguments get easier to throw out older bands both because we already have generations of praise to hang a hat on, but also because the further you go back, music was less splintered and influences easier to measure.

This is what makes the debate interesting to me: how you weigh influence, longevity/volume of work, greatness of work, and what they mean culturally.

I'd be curious to know how an 18 year old views Pearl Jam today (aka someone who wasn't even born when "Ten" came out)

who?

PE were important to some, but they never meant shit to me.

I continued this debate at the bar last night with a buddy. Unfortunately we both came to the sad conclusion that Aerosmith probably would win, if a national vote was held.

Nirvana. They were the band that got me into music back when I was 13 and influenced me to find out about all of his influences, etc. There are tons of bands that sound similar/ were influenced by them, and Kurt is still a cultural icon. I mean even rappers name drop Kurt, which I don't hear happen to other rockers.

CCR or Tom Petty I guess, though he's disqualified, right?

Then today I say Petty.

Clearly it's all subjective but for me, Nirvana meets all requirements except longevity and volume of work.

Longevity seems like a fairly pointless criteria. Even the Beatles were only around for 7 years. As well, longevity and volume of work are requirements that cancel each other out (ie: because of their longevity, bands like the Beach Boys and Grateful Dead put out far more embarrassing horseshit than anything approaching good).

Longevity of influence is what I look at. If the Ramones had put out those first four albums and then died collectively in a fiery pizza explosion their importance and influence would have been exactly the same as we know it now. They weren't considered in this thread because they toured behind "Pet Semetary" (I hope), they're mentioned because that first flash of genius still has an obvious influence on our pop culture landscape.

My main beef with choosing Petty would be the greatness of work. There is no doubt that his Anthology of hits takes a back seat to no one (well, almost) but for every couple of singles on an album, he had a LOT of filler. Particulary the mid-to-late 80's albums.