Best/most important American rock band

REM is different because they were a great local band that just spread through word of mouth and passed along mixed tapes. Sure a NYC or LA band could rise up without a record contract, but Athens?

 

Regarding Talking Heads:

I'm not sure any band has gone from so great to so off-the-charts shitty as quickly. Those first five albums are brilliant. To release "Remain in Light," follow it with "Speaking in Tongues," and then the tour that produced "Stop Making Sense"... that's absolutely as good as it gets.

And they followed it with "Little Creatures," a collection of loathsome little ironic cutesy-poo children's songs. It's fucking AWFUL.

I hate smirking, "yes it's stupid that's the point" irony from rock bands. The whole Zoo TV thing from U2 was the same. And, as I mentioned a few posts up, "Stand" by REM.

 

OK
A couple of things.
I love love love Talking Heads "Take Me To The River" and "Wild Wild Life".
Not a GREAT AMERICAN BAND.

 

Dan Rather approves.

 

Pretty sure One Way Out, the great Allmans oral history dealt with that. Clapton wanted him to leave but Duane never really considered it.

 

And the best of that group: The Blasters

 

Going to disagree with you on that. That may be were 4/5 were born, but their music is thoroughly American. Robbie Robertson talks at length in his memoir about how the South was the holy grail for him and how he had to get to "the source." The group cut their teeth playing with Ronnie Hawkins and came of age playing with Bob Dylan. They're an American band.

And they're my vote for the best. Life is a Carnival, WS Walcott Medicine Show, Up on Cripple Creek, King Harvest, Acadian Driftwood, Hobo Jungle, The Weight, Rockin ' Chair -- they didn't make a bad song.

 

If we count The Band as American, they definitely go top five.
But under the same criteria, Fleetwood Mac has been American since the mid-Seventies, and they have to be in the mix too.

 

Los Lobos is a great band. American. NRBQ. MOST underrated band of all time.

 

The Beatles also point to American - mainly Southern - music as their influence. You claiming them too?

 

John and George were pretty much full-time US residents at the time of their deaths, as Paul and Ringo are now. So I guess the Beatles are All-American.

 

Did they cut their teeth with Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan and take up residence in Woodstock with Dylan after years of touring too? I don't recall ever reading that.