Best/most important American rock band

Says a lot about this board's view of American rock that the Beach Boys seem to be the consensus No. 1.

 

To this day it's hard for me to hear "How You've Grown" without tearing up and getting the urge to call my mother and apologize for any bad thing I might have done growing up.

In My Tribe is probably their best album. Our Time in Eden is my favorite. Like I said, it just hit that sweet spot of discovering it when I was coming of age and coming out of some shitty high school years. It was also the first band and album that I really "discovered" on my own. I think I'd heard These Are Days at some point, and I saw the tape in a gift shop at Six Flags in the summer of '93. Bought it feeling adventurous and independent, and it turned into one of the best $7 I ever spent. Must have listened to that thing a thousand times over the next 10 years.

 

The Beach Boys - OK, primarily Brian Wilson - were great, but if you want to talk real influence you gotta look at The Ramones, who have been mentioned here. While they didn't invent the punk movement when they played in England in 1976 (The Pistols and Clash shared a bill at that time too), as somebody in the movement at the time said "everything got faster". The Beach Boys didn't cause kids in Shepherd's Bush to run off and form surf bands.

 

It's funny, never heard of Velvet Underground until my 20s, also wondered why Lou Reed was so revered on MTV and elsewhere. Now I know. It is odd though that you rarely hear a VU song on a classic rock or oldies station. Doors, Airplane, The Animals, The Rascals...sure.

 

I think one could make a solid argument that in terms of listener enjoyment, creativity, artistic growth, groundbreaking/meshing sound, and great live act...The Eagles are on par with those listed herein.

 

Eleven pages and no one has mentioned Cannibal Corpse?

 

I will never understand people's infatuation with The Velvet Underground. I guess they're influential, since everyone likes to say so. But I never knew a single person in high school or college who owned one of their records.

 

We ran with different crowds.

 

I reckon. My friends and I had a pretty eclectic taste in music. From Zappa to the Dead, the Samples to Pearl Jam. The Velvet Underground just fell through the cracks of my musical education. It's not to say I don't like some of their songs; I just never understood the veneration from certain quarters.

 

Not my cup of tea, but you won't get an argument from me.

 

Agree about their importance - their feud with Geffen paved the way for the performers to have more control and make more cash. Disagree about being a great live act. I'd argue that they were one of the most fortunate bands in history. They broke up just ahead of MTV's launch and they've never been a "visual" band, classic rock became a radio genre giving them heavy play, first cassettes and then CDs allowed them to accumulate record sales without touring or putting out any new music, and country acts credited them as influences giving them another audience (again without having to record or tour). By the time they came back, their fans (and the fans they gained during their absence) were out of college and making money and able and willing to spend $100 or more for a concert ticket.
How many 70s bands survived the MTV era?

 

My Hot Takes:

— said it before, Lennon and McCartney had several line up changes and five years before exploding in America as the Beatles. Three or so years in England. Brian Wilson had his brothers, cousin and neighbor in the garage and they almost immediately got big. There was no time for them or him to home their crafts out of the public eye. Who knows what would have happened had Brian Wilson somehow got a more solid band?
— I hate the Eagles, but there is no denying they sold a ton of albums and made a lot of hits. To me, they were too much like a 1970s sitcom. Started off interesting and then fell into doing the same thing over and over again because it worked so well.
— the doors are tough for me. They really were an excellent band that got left behind by the mythos of Morrison. However, their stuff sans Morrison was never the same.
— velvet undergound: love this band, but their impact is narrow. They inspired bands to want to be them, but most of those bands weren’t huge either.
— Springsteen is a solo act with a backing band.
— at their best, the Grateful Dead were great and they were around forever. They are the Stan Musial in this discussion. Really great, very underrated, almost unappreciated outside of select audiences.