Greatest rock band of all time?
- Thread starter CatPhight_rivals65113
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Old Chicago is just incredible stuff. Talk about musicianship. Steely Dan is another primo example of real talent honing their craft and writing pop savvy rock awesomeness whilst maintaining their integrity.
Once Chicago went 80s pop ballad they totally blew. Thats what I grew up hearing my parents listen to (I was born in 80s.) I always assumed Chicago just sucked. Then I was introduced to their earlier stuff as I myself progressed as a musician. Those guys had chops.
1. Zepplin
2. Chicago (Early, pre-PC)
3. Skynard
4. Stones
5. Aerosmith
6. Boston
7. Bad Company
8. Alan Parsons Project
9. AC/DC
10. Grand Funk Railroad
11. Steve Miller Band
12. Def Leppard
13. Supertramp
14. Foreigner
15. Procol Harum
16. ELO
17. Doobie Brothers
18. Metallica
19. Billy Idol
20. Judas Priest.
My top 20, in no particular order after the top 5. LZ will always be # 1 in my book.
2. Chicago (Early, pre-PC)
3. Skynard
4. Stones
5. Aerosmith
6. Boston
7. Bad Company
8. Alan Parsons Project
9. AC/DC
10. Grand Funk Railroad
11. Steve Miller Band
12. Def Leppard
13. Supertramp
14. Foreigner
15. Procol Harum
16. ELO
17. Doobie Brothers
18. Metallica
19. Billy Idol
20. Judas Priest.
My top 20, in no particular order after the top 5. LZ will always be # 1 in my book.
Zeppelin stole everything! I'd pick GNR over them. I don't think the Beatles or rolling stones wrote most of their material either, especially their earlier stuff and I don't mean the covers everyone know are covers.
Every band did this. And before the advent of popular music in the terms we think of today, its precisely what EVERY band did. They would gather wherever..supper clubs, juke joints, dances, palaces...wherever you want to jump back to in time....and would play music as written. Its why we have sheet music. The idea of a "band" is only a very recent in the grand scheme of things invention. Do you criticize a good chef for opening recipe books, using those recipes and then perhaps tweaking them a touch to suit their own personal taste? Why is it any different for a band of any sort to take an old standard and then play it and make it their own. The notion that it somehow makes them lesser is so patently misguided and absurd. If an artist tries to steal a song or idea and present it as wholly their own and completely original that is an entirely different story. Everyone was fully aware Brits were playing blues standards and jamming out on them. I dont understand why people think this is some sort of valid point of criticism or contention.
I’m not saying it’s Lynyrd Skynyrd but you have to judge their body of work within the short window it was created in. From their first debut album in 73, they had four years before the plane crash in 77. You could probably pick out the best four year run of any band but that’s not even fair. We don’t know if that was Lynyrd Skynyrds best run, it was their only run.
What an ignorant take.
+1.
Hell the Beatles and Stones were writing songs for other people in addition to their own stuff. Certainly the argument can be made that Zeppelin stole a lyric or lick here and there (I think on a couple of songs they actually settled the case and paid someone). But the Beatles and the Stones? Uh, better brush up on your pop/rock history.
May 76 to Oct 77 is hard for anyone to compete with. Once Steve Gaines joined, it was a whole 'nother level.
I know what history says about the Beatles, doesn't mean it's true. None of the Beatles knew how to read music or much about music theory and it's not like they were some punk band.
How did their songwriting develop leaps and bounds from stuff like please please me and love me do to Eleanor Rigby, A day in the life, in 2 to 3 years with very demanding tour and pr schedules? They weren't classical trained musicians, Martin had to have had a big hand in Eleanor Rigby and A day in the life. It doesn't seem realistic for a band to dominate pop music like nsync at the time and then 2 years later they go on to write some of the most timeless and influential music ever, influencing Pink Floyd etc. I think there was a lot behind the Beatles success, they had a lot of help.
There's quite a lot of musicians that can't read music or know anything about music theory.
Always the fight about who, exactly, qualifies as rock.....that aside, the two most successful and influential acts in popular music in the last 70 years are Elvis Presley and the Beatles, so I'd go with one of them. Since this is about bands, there you go. I don't know about how good/great/best they may be, but next I'd argue Zeppelin - just for how influential there were if nothing else. My sense is every hard rock/heavy metal act can trace lineage back to LZ......
My educated guess is that the Beatles, Stones, et al, GOT BETTER at their craft the more they did it. Now, they might not have figured out how to arrange strings and needed some help there but, by listening to many different types of music, if you've got a good ear (which can be developed), you can figure out what others are doing and adopt/copy the structure. All of 'music theory' stems from the classical era (Bach, Beethoven, etc.) who developed the basics of key structures, intervals, etc. You don't have to know that a dim7 chord has stacked minor 3rds but you can listen to many pop/Big Band/jazz tunes and determine how and when to use a chord like that so that it sounds good. George Harrison's tunes, at least the better known ones, contain augmented and diminshed chords a lot. He didn't just make it up - he learned how to use them and where they can fit to add color to a chord progression from someone else, either directly or through listening to other people's music. Songwriters aren't discovering new structures and chords - they borrow what they've picked up from others and put their own spin on it. And, btw, even in the early Beatles songs which were 'simpler', they used a few chords and structures that typically didn't show up in pop music at the time (check out the first chord in 'Hard Day's Night' among many others and 'Yesterday' wasn't a typical ballad structure/chord progression).
Another thing to remember is that probably 90+% of the songs written by the Beatles, Stones, et al, end up being scrapped or being totally reworked. How many songs do you think Paul McCartney has thrown away? The ones we know are the best ones of that time period and the ones they could make work.
Somewhere in top 20 talk should be Emerson, Lake, and Palmer
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young
Jefferson Airplane
Big Brother and the Holding Company.
Yeah, I watched the Woodstock doc a while back so I've revisited some old stuff. That era was an explosion of creativity.
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young
Jefferson Airplane
Big Brother and the Holding Company.
Yeah, I watched the Woodstock doc a while back so I've revisited some old stuff. That era was an explosion of creativity.