Best American Band Ever?

Lets not leave out he White Stripes..they are definitely in the mix

One of the few bands to flourish when they went to a major, but not the best. You would have to say The Misfits.

Minor Threat would need to be considered as they are responsible for a genre.

LITTLE FEAT

Grand Funk Railroad, Van Halen, Metallica, Lizzy Borden, Iced Earth.

I'm gonna have to agree

better with vedder

Let us never forget the contribution of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention..brilliant !!

I'm gonna say The Greatful Dead. The roots of rock and roll are jazz and blues. No band has done more to mainstream these genres than the Dead, who have covered hundreds of old blues and jazz songs (most of which people think the Dead wrote). They have also written hundreds of their own songs, stayed together forever, and have a justifiably huge following of live show attendees that stretches multiple generations of fans. They can be both studio precision (American Beauty, Blues for Allah), or highly improvisational. You may hate their pseudo-hippo modern fans, but there is no denying their place among America's greatest rock bands.

One of the best selling bands of all time.
Many radio rock anthems.
Legendary videos.
Was able to be just as big and sellout arenas with a new front man, Hagar which is almost unheard of.
Revolutionary guitar player.
Also revolutionary for their business practices like the British Zeppelin in the way contracts are written....
Van Halen had a notable effect on the modern rock music tour with their use of the concert technical contract rider. They were one of the first bands to use contract riders to specify a "wish list", a practice now used throughout the music industry. They pioneered extensive requirements including power availability and stage construction details. The band's demands were not limited to technical issues; their now-infamous rider specified that a bowl of M&M's, with all of the brown M&M's removed, was to be placed in their dressing room.[59] According to David Lee Roth, this was listed in the technical portion of the contract not because the band wanted to make capricious demands of the venue, but rather as a test of whether the venue had actually read and honored the terms of the contract, as it contained other requirements involving legitimate safety concerns.[60]
On earlier tours, inadequate compliance by local organizers to the safety requirements of the rider had placed members of Van Halen's road crew in danger which was occasionally life-threatening. Because of these incidents, the band developed the M&M's demand as a means of checking whether the venue was properly honoring the terms of the contract to their satisfaction. Subsequently, if the bowl was missing, or if there were brown M&M's present, they had reason to suspect that the venue might not have honored legitimate technical and safety concerns within the contract. As a result, the band would be within their rights to inspect the technical side of the performance prior to going on stage, and/or request the venue redo their work properly.[61] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Halen

This.

End of discussion.

Cheap Trick is America's band! Such an amazing body of work and their music makes me think about the good things about America. Also pretty much no one hates them, they're that awesome.

the best american band ever is DLR-era Van Halen.

that's all there is to it.

Paul Simon is the best American songwriter.

CCR while fantastic have a lack of personality and chops

rhcp have the worst singer ever, but an unbelievable first three albums.

ramones are great, but not enough variation in their sound.

Aerosmith weren't original enough.

Nirvana has the legacy and in my opinion the songs to be up there.

steely dan? no personality, too sterile.

springsteen? never saw the huge draw although i do appreciate many of his tunes.

Phish? come on. They are a fun band, but most of it is musical jacking off. (and as a player, that is my favorite stle to play...)

an argument could be made for pixies and i can definitely get behind the minutemen, but not enough people were into them to really say they were the best band ever...

my personal favorite band is Mr. Bungle.

but DLR-era VH had it all.

Unbelievable talent, great songs, not a bad album from VH1-1984 best front man ever.

Eddies phrasing and rhythm playing alone makes them the best band ever.

They are the best american band ever,

I told my wife, there is nothing that would make me prouder than if one day my little boy was able to play the intro to mean streets on guitar. that would, to me, be the ultimate.

I know the members are from different places but is this an American Band?

50% actually,,,Neil Young is Canadian and Graham Nash is British...still one of the greatest bands ever

I left out the Talking Heads.

So fuckin' good but are they truly a band?

You can debate genres and influence...but if the criteria is success...then it's the Eagles.

Kudos to many of you though for some worthy candidates with great catalogs.

Buddy Holly & the Crickets
Band of Gypsies
VU
Greatful Dead (gotta mention 'em.....you REALLY don't have to mention bands that copy them though...kinda deafeats the whole point)
NY & Crazy Horse (duh)
Stooges
Blue Cheer
Pentagram
Grand Funk Railroad
New York Dolls
Ramones
Van Halen
HC- Wipers (PNW)
Bad Brains (East Coast.....Minor Threats inflluence)
Black Flag (West Coast)
Misfits (for some reason the MidWest loved 'em...we hated 'em in SF. Rock star assholes. There was a riot when they played the Elite*)
Sonic Youth
Metallica
Swans
Butthole Surfers
Replacements
Motley Crue
Mudhoney
Dwarves (Yup)
FarFlung (the kids now know)

For my $$ and taste #1 goes to the Ramones....but these are the big players. ALL revolutionary in one way or another and have at least 2/3 great albums worth of material....and, most importantly, were and continue to be infuencential on other bands of other bands. Only bands Pearl Jam ever influenced were 3 Doors Down and Nickleback. No thanks.

Saviours and White Hills are the best American band touring and putting out records right now. Fucking mind melters. Jeff the Brotherhood kicks ass too.


PS; Put the Hardcore bands by region because that's the way it was. Certain bands exploded at the same time and created a chain reaction of bands in their regions. The fast DC/Boston sound is FIRMLY rooted in the ROIR cassette fer instance. The Dead Kennedy's belong in there but they were kinda their own thing and definitely weren't the machine Black Flag was. Those SST tours were like a punk rock carnival that came through wherever I happened to be living at least once a year w/ tons of sick bands. DOA really started that insanity but being from Canada don't get their props in this disertaition.
PS; I worked at a record store in NH when I was a kid and we had tons of the first two Shaggs records....wish I still had my copies. Still find myself humming "My Pal FootFoot" every now and again. Good shit.

PS; Yeah I know....logorrhea

Pearl Jam... LOL! Good joke, I get it!

Here's the top 10...
Rush
Rush
Rush
Rush
Rush
Rush
Rush
Rush
Led Zeppelin
Jimi Hendrix

Actually according to Wikipedia by your methodology the Best American Band is Aerosmith. Followed by the Backstreet Boys, Bon Jovi and then the Eagles. In that order.
So that's
1. Aerosmith
2. THE BACKSTREET BOYS
3. Bon Jovi
4. The EAGLES

Judging artists by their "success" w/o factoring in anything else is pretty cool. Kudos to the 2nd BEST band in American history....THE BACKSTREET BOYS. And of course the eagles...the 4th bes...blah blah blah