Top 7 Best Bands of all Time

[Surf]

RUSH, c'mon!
How the sum of parts that is Dave Grohl isn't mentioned in any capacity is telling.
Chicago
Pearl Jam
Stones
Earth Wind and Fire
Metallica

[4saken1]

The Kinks
Talking Heads
The Pixies
The Rolling Stones
The Smiths
Queen
U2

[TriggerWarning]

1. Nightwish - lead singer Floor Jansen is in my opinion the greatest female vocalist of all time. She can literally sing anything from Opera to Death Metal growls and do it well.

2. Within Temptation

3. Angels and Airwaves

4. Duran Duran

5. The Cure

6. Radiohead

7. Evanescence

Bands that almost made my list: New Order, Paramore, Foo Fighters, Depeche Mode, Garbage, Nine Inch Nails, and Slowdive.

[dancj]

The Smiths
Culture Club
Ohio Players
The Cranberries
Big Star
Cocteau Twins
The Walker Brothers

I've tried to like The Smiths as a lot of people with good taste in music love them. I've still only found two good songs by them - Panic and How Soon is Now.

The rest of it just doesn't grab me at all.

[Jim Kelly]

In no particular order:

Glenn Miller Band, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix Experience, Bob Dylan, Leadbelly, Carter Family

I'll include solo artists, because the line gets very blurred...

In no order:

The Beatles
David Bowie
Madness
The Divine Comedy
Bob Dylan
The Kinks
Rolling Stones

Wasn't Bob Dylan's band The Band? Which started out as Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks (also the Canadian Squires), then toured with Dylan, before emerging as The Band and releasing a number of hits on their own--with their "final" concert being recorded as a Martin Scorsese film, THE LAST WALTZ. Seems a disservice to subsume them as "Bob Dylan." That would be like referencing the Beatles only as "Tony Sheridan."

[stargazer01]

This is so hard for me lol. I think some of the most enduring and talented bands are Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, U2, Queen and obviously the Beatles.

Are all of them the very best? It depends who you ask, but those are some of my faves ever. I like others too, but not as much.

[MyriVerse]

The order is pretty solid.

1. The Beatles. Mom was a huge fan. I was born in 1965. The Beatles were basically my nursery songs; the first rock group I even heard of.
2. Bowie. I still tear up a bit.
3. Sting/Police
4. Queen
5. Stevie Wonder
6. Prince. More tears.
7. Madness for turning me onto Ska.

How the sum of parts that is Dave Grohl isn't mentioned in any capacity is telling.

Just a lot of competition. Most of my list was formed right about the time Grohl was learning to play. Oddly enough, I cannot stand Nirvana, but I enjoy him/Foo.

[GOLGO 13]

Am I the only one who thinks Zeppeling is overrated? I enjoy some songs but I much rather listen to other bands like Aerosmith or Santana.

Aerosmith over Zepplin? Oh my...

[Kieran_Frost]

I have this inner debate a lot with my "Top 100" film list; and there is (for me) a difference between 'best' and 'greatest' and 'important'. I think we could easily create a "Top 7 MOST IMPORTANT" bands list, but best is like favourite. My favourite band (so "greatest" for me) is Linkin' Park. The "greatest" (as in important) band is probably the Beatles, followed by Queen, and I'd chuck the Jackson 5 in third.

[Scott Taylor]

Wasn't Bob Dylan's band The Band? Which started out as Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks (also the Canadian Squires), then toured with Dylan, before emerging as The Band and releasing a number of hits on their own--with their "final" concert being recorded as a Martin Scorsese film, THE LAST WALTZ. Seems a disservice to subsume them as "Bob Dylan." That would be like referencing the Beatles only as "Tony Sheridan."

The main reason I used that reference is because all of his albums were credited to Bob Dylan. Wouldn't it be a disservice to subsume Bob Dylan to simply refer to his body of work as that of "The Band"? Santana is kind of thought of as a band, but its really the same thing as Dylan did. As Hendrix pretty much did.

[Nine Crocodile]

The main reason I used that reference is because all of his albums were credited to Bob Dylan. Wouldn't it be a disservice to subsume Bob Dylan to simply refer to his body of work as that of "The Band"? Santana is kind of thought of as a band, but its really the same thing as Dylan did. As Hendrix pretty much did.

The original Santana was truly a band just using the guitar player's name, but it splintered in the early '70s. The Band did not work with Dylan until 1965, by which tine he was already established.

[WillieMorgan]

Wasn't Bob Dylan's band The Band? Which started out as Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks (also the Canadian Squires), then toured with Dylan, before emerging as The Band and releasing a number of hits on their own--with their "final" concert being recorded as a Martin Scorsese film, THE LAST WALTZ. Seems a disservice to subsume them as "Bob Dylan." That would be like referencing the Beatles only as "Tony Sheridan."

Although the Band found fame performing as Dylan's backing band from the mid-60's, they actually recorded very little music with him that saw an official release. There's The Basement Tapes of course, an abridged version of which finally saw the light of day in 1975. Apart from that Dylan and the Band only collaborated together in 1974 on the Planet Waves album. I think there have been a couple of live albums as well. I've actually got one of the Bootleg Series of albums that is a live recording of the infamous 'Judas!' concert. It was called the Royal Albert Hall concert for a long time as it was erroneously believed that the heckling took place there, as opposed to where the incident happened in reality which was at the Free Trade Hall in my native city of Manchester.

The Band's 'solo' discography and career is certainly large and influential enough for them to be put forward on a thread like this on their own merits, as opposed to just being joined at the hip to Dylan, in my opinion.

[stargazer01]

Aerosmith over Zepplin? Oh my...

Any day of the week.

Dream On >>> Stairway to Heaven

Steven Tyler >>> Robert Plant


Aero has a lot more songs I love.

[TriggerWarning]

So is this supposed to be your favorite seven bands or the most important bands to rock history. I see some are basing their choices on one or the other. I listed my seven favorite bands whereas if I listed most important probably none would get mentioned by the rest of you as every one of my bands was 80's or later. Only one I mentioned made my list but thats because of their influence not their music as the music itself, much as I love it, isn't that influential and it was other things about them that mattered. Also I'm sticking with bands else I'd have Elvis, Michael Jackson, and Madonna on here.

If I was going to list most important bands to rock history I suppose it would be:

1. Led Zeppelin - I put them here because they brought hard rock / metal to the mainstream. They would be one of my top 15 bands if I went that deep.

2. Black Sabbath - basically invented heavy metal

3. The Beatles - I really don't like the Beatles music. Their best song IMO (Hey Jude) is to me just a "meh, better than rap." But they were popular and kickstarted the first British Invasion. I put them below the other two because I think pop music would have been much the same without or without them.

4. Run DMC - I despise rap music. I really hate it. But I realize that its popular and I give Run DMC the credit for it. Their cover of Walk This Way is basically the song that made rap popular to white people and broke barriers. Without it rap may never have gone mainstream.

5. Nirvana - The MTV era introduced some great bands but it also introduced a lot of crap where appearance mattered more than the music and as the 80's went on this got worse and worse with music stagnating with overproduced schlock and lack of depth. Nirvana blew that to pieces and utterly changed the direction of music for the next decade. Without them the 90's alternative explosion and the various sub rock genres like Nu-metal probably don't happen.

6. Duran Duran - hear me out. They were the first 80's band to take videos seriously. Before them most music videos were either live concert videos or the band playing to empty room as if in concert. Duran Duran changed videos forever by increasing the video quality and making their videos into mini movies. Its what fueled their early success and helped make the MTV era explode and soon other artists doing the same.

7. Bill Haley and the Comets - they popularized what became known as the rock and roll sound.

[MyriVerse]

Any day of the week.

Dream On >>> Stairway to Heaven

Steven Tyler >>> Robert Plant


Aero has a lot more songs I love.

To each their own, but oh dear no. Objectively, Plant has a better vocal range than Tyler. Tyler's definitely the better showman though. If I'm just listening, Aerosmith is fairly mediocre.