This has me wanting to flip open the hardcover of his journals to his favorite bands/albums page

There’s one band there that’s clearly the least rock

Isleys

Didn't know that 😬

SMLTS is just an iconic rift, its the closest a lot of super casual punk listeners will allow themselves to listen to punk rock lol

Half of them were British

even though they only put out 3 albums and a covers project, i think rage against the machine deserves a spot in this convo. their debut is about as close to perfection as you can get for a rock album, and evil empire/battle of la hold their own as well. not to mention how their music is still relevant 30+ years later.

if we're willing to say The Band is more american than canadian im throwing their name in

Problem is their music doesn’t have softer songs

top 10 favorite american rock bands of all time:

1. the beach boys
2. the doors
3. the velvet underground
4. the stooges
5. talking heads
6. the cars
7. blondie
8. ramones
9. big star
10. television

Isleys are more soulful and smooth at the end of the day though.

Surface level thinking right there

this song is insane

Not tryna split hairs but Jimi Hendrix Experience probably shouldn’t be in this discussion because 2/3rds of that band was British and they started off in England.

Jimi should be in any discussion of the American greats as a solo act tho. Seattle as a music city >>>>

i agree, but if we wanna play alternate history for a second, audioslave's projects proved that rage could have expanded creatively if zack didn't leave the group when he did

I don't wanna give Dave Grohl too much credit because he said he stole whole drum riffs from disco bands

Chris Cornell and ZDLR have vastly different creative philosophies

There’s more to a band than the drums. The entirely of early rock and metal drumming was stolen from jazz drumming.

Internet changed the game

On the surface you think 'well it should've made other bands even bigger' but every fan went into their own personal LimeWire lane once the internet hit

Like if everyone was listening to music the same way they were pre-internet I think a band like White Stripes could've been even bigger

factual

Seven Nation Army is arguably the last iconic rock song lol

i was more referring to the idea that rage could have made softer/slower songs if they wanted to, like the rest of the band did w audioslave. how that creative shift would have meshed with zack's ethos of what the band stood for, we'll never know

the white stripes > nirvana

Their 70s albums are aggressively rock and funk. Way more rock, funk, and psychedelic leaning than many believe. Their biggest songs were soul/R&B but that's just the times they were in. Black audiences weren't going up for their rock and funk records the same way as their R&B singles. White radio stations weren't about to play Black rockstars on the airwaves.

Damn shame. Go For Your Guns had some of my favorite rock tracks from them.

Footsteps in the Dark and Voyage to Atlantis were the tracks to really pop off though. Don't make them any less rock though

Hard agree there too

Although I think Jack's newest album is near his absolute best work