Best/most important American rock band

Was never big on REM, but drafting of @Hermes, I can’t remember the last time I heard anything but Losing My Religion, Stand and One I Love on regular radio. So many good songs that are not played often.

As for RHCP, I hear a ton of stuff of theirs, but it’s the same eight or nine songs. Nothing from the Navarro era.

 

Not sure about the first three you mentioned. I teach teenagers. I still see kids in Pink Floyd, GNR and RHCP t-shirts -- all those bands have at least some "cool" cachet among some kids. Meanwhile, GNR with a reunited Axl, Slash and Duff are putting on killer shows in sold-out stadiums even if they can barely look at each other (I saw them at Gillette in 2016 and they were unreal). REM have absolutely zero cachet among any of the kids I've worked with in the last decade.

On the other hand, Fleetwood Mac is actually the perfect comparison. They were huge with the Boomers (I still cringe at the memory of Bill, Hillary, Al and Tipper dancing to "Don't Stop" at the 1992 DNC). Their early stuff that never got any radio play was their best stuff. They had almost zero appeal to the next generation (I'm born in 1970 -- the epicenter of Gen X. Nobody I knew was into Fleetwood Mac. REM, on the other hand, was huge for my generation, but nobody born after about 1980 gives a shit about them). Everybody knew all their hits -- you couldn't avoid them if you listened to rock radio in the 70s and 80s. But I doubt anyone I went to school with ever owned a Fleetwood Mac album. If their parents were on the younger side, you'd see a copy of "Rumours" in their house but that's about it.

 

Speaking of well crafted, forgettable rock songs. They will be forgotten quick IMHO.

 

Foo Fighters is Wings to Nirvana's Beatles, and I mean that in a positive way -- for about 6 years, Wings was one of the biggest bands on the planet, and Paul was playing only a handful of Beatles songs at each show.

 

Foo Fighters will always have a place in my heart bc One of These Days — an ode to death and living for now — was the first song I heard after I walked out of my father’s hospital room after having to euthanize him. But a lot of their music is just annoying and kind of pointless.

 

We had a part-timer on our staff years ago who was ... not the brightest porch light on the block. Somebody asked one night who the three greatest American rock bands were and he immediately blurted out the Beatles, Who and Rolling Stones. When we told him they were all English bands, his next choice was ... Kool and the Gang. Some things you just never forget.