Who's the greatest American band of all time?

Reading this thread just says to me how blessed we’ve been in Britain to have such great bands.

In England alone there’s The Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, Kinks, The Who, The Jam, Pink F… all better/greater than anything out of America.

Solo artists they win with Dylan, Elvis and Michael Jackson.. we did have Bowie though.
 
Reading this thread just says to me how blessed we’ve been in Britain to have such great bands.

In England alone there’s The Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, Kinks, The Who, The Jam, Pink F… all better/greater than anything out of America.

Solo artists they win with Dylan, Elvis and Michael Jackson.. we did have Bowie though.
Uh, The Jam? Better than The Beach Boys or REM or Steely Dan? The others on your list I'll give you and I like The Jam fine but they were quintessentially English with no universal appeal and were never anything other than a minor cult band here and for good reason.
 
I’d have all of those and add Velvet Underground, Talking Heads and REM.

More recently, love Bright Eyes.
Yeah I would add REM to that list for sure. Maybe not the other two (although they are ok, for me VU whilst so influential made some pretty gash music to go with their good stuff)
 
Hard to pick one, loads of great American bands,different styles are hard to compare, but if pushed I'd probably just about plump for Blue Oyster Cult.
 
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Uh, The Jam? Better than The Beach Boys or REM or Steely Dan? The others on your list I'll give you and I like The Jam fine but they were quintessentially English with no universal appeal and were never anything other than a minor cult band here and for good reason.
Yeah fair point, I was just reeling off a few off the top of my head.

The Jam I prefer to the those you’ve mentioned but maybe not as “good” as REM and the Beach Boys are definitely better.

The Kinks are probably the same in their quintessentially Englishness, after an initial bit of success in the US they retreated back to Blighty and made local tunes.

We’ve only really got Bowie that matches your great solo artists so it’s not a pop at America, I just think we’ve got 4 bands at least are/were the greatest in the world.
 
Yeah fair point, I was just reeling off a few off the top of my head.

The Jam I prefer to the those you’ve mentioned but maybe not as “good” as REM and the Beach Boys are definitely better.

The Kinks are probably the same in their quintessentially Englishness, after an initial bit of success in the US they retreated back to Blighty and made local tunes.

We’ve only really got Bowie that matches your great solo artists so it’s not a pop at America, I just think we’ve got 4 bands at least are/were the greatest in the world.
You do. The top 4 in the pantheon are all English, maybe top 5 if you include Pink Floyd.
 

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