Best/most important American rock band

we're 8 pages in and no one has floated The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

(I see PCLL has him listed. Happy to be corrected. I skimmed - but I also think this is part of our category problem: "band." Which takes Janis Joplin out of contention unless you want to add Big Brother and the Holding Company)

 

seconded

 

I'm arguing "Pet Sounds" is better than "Sgt. Pepper."

"Wouldn't It Be Nice" and "God Only Knows" are better than anything on "Sgt. Pepper," and I don't think there's anything even close. Then again, I think "Sgt. Pepper" is maybe The Beatles' sixth best record.

Bob Seger should be nowhere near this thread.

 

It was fitting that that one song where Michael Stipe did guest vocals on a 10,000 Maniacs song was a B-side.

I loved 10,000 Maniacs when I was in high school and college. "Our Time in Eden" came out in my late high school years and hit that sweet spot when I was feeling that fleeting moment that these are in fact good times. Nowadays, though, I really hear the lyrics on some of their other albums and am amazed. A couple of their albums border on parody in the contrast between the music and the lyrics.
Nobody, and I mean nobody, can belt out a jaunty tune about crippling depression or child abuse quite like Natalie Merchant.

 

I was a huge fan. I've only been to a handful of concerts in my life, and saw them twice.

 

The Replacements' "Let It Be," "Tim" and "Pleased to Meet Me" are up there with anything.

 

"Katmandu" is probably the most annoying American rock song ever. Up there with the Waitresses' "I Know What Boys Like".

 

I got into them right as they were breaking up, so I never got the chance. Natalie Merchant was veering toward the Lillith Fair scene when I would have been keen on seeing them, and since I have a penis that would have been an awkward concert experience.
Still dig them, though, and have all of their CDs.

 

I don't have a problem if Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band takes the award, and we call it a day.

They were certainly a "band".

A million great songs.

Influential.

 

I saw them in I would guess 1988 at the Wiltern in LA with my college girlfriend, and 1993 at the greek theater with my wife. You'll never guess what we named our daughter, born in 1993.
In My Tribe is easily one of my favorite albums ever, and The Wishing Chair before it is just as good.

 

Do not, repeat DO NOT google pictures of Natalie Merchant today. It will bum you out how time is the enemy of us all.

 

The Pixies are a pretty important band. Or maybe just Steve Albini.