Best/most important American rock band

stooges?

 

Certainly among the most important, along with the MC5.

Though I don't know that anyone actually listened to the MC5...

 

The Beach Boys peak was short, but even your post acknowledges their place in history.

 

Oh yeah, absolutely. What Wilson was doing with melody and harmony stands right up with Lennon/McCartney until the Rubber Soul/Revolver episode of 1966.
At that point the Beatles shifted into warp drive and The Beach Boys, after Pet Sounds, dropped out of the race.

 

Velvet Underground, Ramones, Stooges, and even the Pixies are all worth mentioning. Each was hugely influential, especially in specific sub-genres of Rock & Roll.

 

I agree with every word of this except the last line.

As would Jim DeRogatis in this takedown of Sgt. Pepper: Idle worship

 

My shuffle just popped up an obvious one, so obvious that if it's a DB I apologize and if it's not we should all be ashamed of ourselves -- the Shirelles.

 

The Michael Stipe unintelligible lyrics ended after their first or second album. Probably somewhere around 'Don't Go Back To Rockville'.

And to bring it back to Bob Seger, his vote is pretty much on record: "All of Chuck's children are out there playing his licks".

 

Chuck and Elvis had great original bands on their early groundbreaking hits, but then they went on for most of their careers as solo stars backed by essentially anonymous backing groups.

Similarly, Buddy Holly ditched the Crickets about halfway through his 3-year career.

I suppose in those days the idea of keeping a group together a long, long time never really occurred to anybody.

 

I was kind of surprised Springsteen wasn't on the list.

 

Chuck Berry, after a while, just told the promoters to have a band ready for him when he got to the venue.

 

"The first Velvet Underground album sold only 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band." - Brian Eno