The Border Battle Of The Bands 2015

[Jonny Come Lately]

I'm quite happy to put Styx on the list instead of Kansas. I am personally more familiar with Kansas (I like Carry On Wayward Son quite a bit) but Styx are perhaps slightly more significant in that they were one of the first successful AOR bands.

I'd be fine with adding Def Leppard to the list. However, I do not intend for there to be any further expansion of the number of bands. If one band already on the list drops out, as things stand it will be America (I think they are the band who could be removed with least rancour, partially because they are fairly similar to CSNY).

Thanks for posting that list UtW. I must admit I can't see that many bands that haven't already mentioned (although it would be an excellent resource to consult before doing the solo artists version). I noticed Metallica on the list but I'm not sure if there are any fans on here. However, I think it confirms that Chicago would be a decent addition to the list, and perhaps helps the cases of Green Day and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. As for The Police not being on the original list, I think that was an oversight more than anything else.

One other name that I had forgotten about but has occurred to me today is Buffalo Springfield - I think I considered them originally but left them off because two of their most famous members were later in CSNY.

I actually did consider the Grateful Dead but I actually had an idea on another forum whereby I asked members to name their favourite songs by 18 different bands, with the Dead being one of them. I found that a surprising number of people struggled to name any songs by them so I think this put me off including them on the list. I'm happy to reconsider this although I tend to think of them as being comparable to the Velvet Underground in that they are beloved by critics and have a cult following, but are just not that popular overall.

[Freypower]

The suggestion of mine you didn't mention was the Band who were critcs' favourites. I would rather they were included than arena rock bands like Styx & Foreigner. But this is me showing my lack of knowledge of American arena rock bands. On behalf of my husband however, I would like to see Blue Oyster Cult in there.

Regarding Blondie they weren't disco. Not even Heart Of Glass was disco in my view. I see them as power pop. They probably got more attention than they deserved but they did have some great singles. So did the Cars.

Wishbone Ash would barely register today if you did a poll. I would go with 10cc for an esoteric British band that isn't much heard of these days. Thin Lizzy & ELP I agree with. I would also throw in Roxy Music.

I wouldn't have had either Fleetwood Mac or U2 in the Magnficent Seven. I like Fleetwood Mac but a lot of their recognition is really based on one (admittedly huge) album. I loathe U2. However I do acknowledge their global success. Looking at the alternatives my substitutions would be purely partisan (I wonder if you can guess what they would be)?! so I guess it makes sense to stick with these two.

What a shame it is there are no black bands (even the Experience members were white apart from Hendrix). It seemed that after the great bluesmen most black musicians chose to be either singers or musicans but not both (unless they are the great Stevie Wonder or Prince). You can't really have a vocal band like the Temptations in a game like this. Hopefully more black artists will be represented in a solo artist game.

[AlreadyGone95]

.

Thanks for posting that list UtW. I must admit I can't see that many bands that haven't already mentioned (although it would be an excellent resource to consult before doing the solo artists version). I noticed Metallica on the list but I'm not sure if there are any fans on here.

There's at least one here (myself). Metallica would rank in my top 20. Iron Maiden would be another band to add(#6 on my favorites list), and possibly Judas Priest (if you want to have a few metal bands represented besides Sabbath)

[AlreadyGone95]

Tbh, I can only name one black band, and that's Living Colour (late 80s/early 90s hard rock/funk metal band). I love their album Vivid, which had the hit Cult of Personality on it.

[thelastresort]

and possibly Judas Priest (if you want to have a few metal bands represented besides Sabbath)

I second that nomination. My second favoruite band ever (guess who's first? ), and everything a heavy metal band should be. Tipton-Downing is for me the best guitar duo ever (and early Halford the best rock / metal vocalist ever) and they are what sparked my love for music. Second only to Sabbath in the list of greatest metal band of all time (though I would argue they were the first intentional metal band). If someone like Maiden or Metallica make the final cut then they must be in there. It'd be like including the Eagles without including the Byrds if not.

[Roey]

Doobie Brothers ?

[Jonny Come Lately]

Just wanted to post a few thoughts of mine about the eight selected bands which will by pass the preliminary round.

One thing you can take consolation from FP is that I technically didn't put U2 in the 'Magnificent Seven'.

There are other bands that I would rather include as the eighth band in this group but I think U2 simply has the best credentials of any of the bands outside the seven. I sometimes think that they are indisputably an all-time great band in just about every aspect but the music itself (as musicians they are technically nothing special). They have the commercial success but also have at least two legendary albums and have inspired a lot of bands in the last 20 years or so. As a case in point, several of the bands Lacken listed back on page 1 would count them as a major influence.

Some bands are just too specialised to be able to justify sending them straight past the preliminary round (Yes in prog and Poco in country rock, for instance). I too would love to be able to give this honour to Dire Straits but for some reason they are too easy to ignore, with non-fans generally only recognising a very small number of songs. Genesis have better credentials but I feel their case isn't quite strong enough either.

In the UK I could probably justify giving U2's spot to Queen but in the US I don't think they are much bigger than, say, Journey. ABBA have numerous hits but do not hold the respect of the other bands listed - they were great at writing catchy pop songs but were not. Aerosmith might have a case now I think about it, as probably America's most iconic hard rock band, but they were strongly inspired by Led Zeppelin.

Fleetwood Mac I feel is different because you don't have to go too far into this section of the forum to realise just how popular they are on here. The level of interest in them on here is high but they are very popular on both sides of the Atlantic, and I think Rumours alone has a song to appeal to most tastes. Of course, while most of us on here are Lindsey/Stevie era fans they were also good as a British blues band. If a band has gone through multiple phases or line ups I don't think there is any need to consider all of them, just the ones you are familiar with (e.g. If I vote for Deep Purple I will be basing my opinion largely on the Mark II line up). If you are genuinely more familiar with Peter Green's FM, you can vote based on your opinion of them rather than the Rumours version.

I personally think it's very difficult for anyone to argue against the selections of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin - all are hugely successful, widely respected as artists, massively influential, have several legendary albums each and numerous widely recognised songs.

I'll include the provisional line up so far in my next post, along with potential candidates that have been identified for revisions to the list.

[Jonny Come Lately]

Battle Of The Bands - The List So Far

I am now close enough to having a good list of 56 bands to be able to post the provisional list of bands who will be entering the game.

The bands receiving a ‘bye’ to Round 1 (i.e. skipping the preliminary round) will be:
The Beach Boys
The Beatles
Fleetwood Mac
Led Zeppelin
Pink Floyd
The Rolling Stones
U2
The Who

So far I have down 43 bands/groups who will enter the preliminary round. These are as follows:
1. ABBA
2. AC/DC
3. Aerosmith
4. The Allman Brothers Band
5. Bad Company
6. The Band
7. Bee Gees
8. Black Sabbath
9. Bon Jovi
10. The Byrds
11. The Clash
12. Coldplay
13. Cream
14. Creedence Clearwater Revival
15. Crosby, Stills and Nash (& Young)
16. Deep Purple
17. Dire Straits
18. The Doors
19. ELO
20. Foreigner
21. Genesis
22. Guns 'N' Roses
23. Heart
24. The Jimi Hendrix Experience
25. Journey
26. KISS
27. Lynyrd Skynyrd
28. Nirvana
29. Oasis
30. Pearl Jam
31. Poco
32. The Police
33. Queen
34. Radiohead
35. The Ramones
36. R.E.M.
37. Rush
38. The Sex Pistols
39. Styx
40. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
41. Van Halen
42. Yes
43. ZZ Top

Candidates for Addition to the List
There have been several decent nomination where I have not quite been sure whether to add to the list, I have counted 16 bands so far and here they are:

1. Blondie
2. Blue Oyster Cult
3. The Cars
4. Doobie Brothers
5. Emerson, Lake & Palmer
6. The Grateful Dead
7. Green Day
8. Iron Maiden
9. Jethro Tull
10. Judas Priest
11. Living Colour
12. Metallica
13. Red Hot Chili Peppers
14. Roxy Music
15. Thin Lizzy
16. 10cc

Five of these bands will make the list unless there are any strong further nominations or there is another band that I think I can remove without significant complaint.

My thoughts so far on possible inclusions:
At least one more metal band will be included for sure as only Black Sabbath was included on the original list, and quite possibly more as I think there needs to be a representative of later metal (i.e. Iron Maiden or Metallica), whereas Judas Priest are from the same era and movement as Sabbath.

I think The Cars would probably be a slightly better choice than Blondie as a power-pop band. I think this is simply because I've seen more discussion about their music on the internet than for Blondie.

I'm not sure Living Colour are quite well known enough to include (FWIW I'd never heard of them), I can definitely see the merit in including a black band though.

Omissions
There is one band that has been removed from my original list and two others that I have I ruled out from including in the game.
- America (CSNY take the folk-rock spot)
- Kansas (lost out to Styx)
- Wishbone Ash (too obscure, and would be a biased choice on my part)


One thing I'd remembered was this interesting opinion based Youtube video which gives this user's 25 favourite classic rock songs. It includes songs by a number of bands included in the game, including some which perhaps are not quite as familiar to everyone, with the top three including songs by Rush and Yes, for instance.

I've posted this video below as I think it might be useful to get a taste of the styles by some of the featured bands as the video is only about 8-9 minutes in length with short snippets from each song. Most of the selections are reasonably representative (Dire Straits, for instance, are represented by the organic bluesy Fender Stratocaster sound of Sultans Of Swing, not the distorted Les Paul of Money For Nothing) bar Pink Floyd's Young Lust, which is heavier than most of their other songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzY6...8&spfreload=10

(You might just recognise #18 on their list )

[thelastresort]

...
At least one more metal band will be included for sure as only Black Sabbath was included on the original list, and quite possibly more as I think there needs to be a representative of later metal (i.e. Iron Maiden or Metallica), whereas Judas Priest are from the same era and movement as Sabbath.

Debatable sentiment there, the only real similarity Sabbath and Priest share is that they grew up in post-WW2 Birmingham and went on to become the most recognised heavy metal bands. They have very different tales though - Sabbath got their first album released four years before Priest, and even when Priest got their first album in '74 it was a concoction of prog and blues rock that Sabbath had generally abandoned before their stardom. Furthermore, Sabbath cemented themselves in the genre almost instantly, Priest almost called it quits after their first two albums and spent half of the decade skint since their producers treated them so poorly. It wasn't until the late Seventies Priest really took off (by which time arguably Sabbath had peaked and began to decline), and they and Maiden were the two acts that dominated 1980s metal. I would also argue their catalog covers a lot more musical styles than most other metal bands - Rocka Rolla contains some songs that wouldn't be out of place on a prog album; Sin After Sin was years ahead in the heaviness stakes when released in 1977, and is very akin to classic hard rock; complimenting British Steel and the proceeding three albums which were classic, textbook 1980s metal; Turbo was an Eliminator-style glam metal output; Painkiller is out and out thrash metal and for good measure they've even done a concept album, Nostradamus. Again unlike Sabbath they also accomplished much of their output using the same core of musicians - two members have been perpetual, one left in 2011 after the same term, one took a decade out in the Nineties (with one constant replacement) and they've only had two drummers since 1979. Compare that to Sabbath who only have one perpetual member, and particularly in the 1980s went through an endless stream of line-up changes.

If we are to discriminate on the basis that bands come the same movement and era as each other then maybe we should also choose only one of The Who and Led Zeppelin; or maybe one of Pink Floyd and Yes; or Sex Pistols and The Clash...

My point is is that Sabbath and Priest complement each other. Metal would not be the same without either of them and they both deserve recognition, not one being palmed off as they're too similar. It's the same for other genres of rock / metal: prog is what it is now because of Pink Floyd, Yes and Genesis in combination. All components are equally important.

[AlreadyGone95]

I only mentioned Living Colour in response to FP's talking about there needing to be a black band. I really don't know if they're in the same league as most of the bands in the competition already.

I also agree that Priest and Sabbath are from different eras. Sabbath, Purple, and Zeppelin are the 3 "huge" starters for metal and they all started in the late 60s, versus Priest who came along in the mid 70s. Priest are thought of as a "New Wave of British Heavy Metal " band by alot of fans, which would put them in the same category as Maiden.
If I had my way, the list would include:
Blue Oyster Cult
Def Leppard
Iron Maiden
Judas Priest
Metallica

I would make a case for Thin Lizzy, but because I'm more familiar with BOC, I went with them.