Best Band

I'm going with Pink Floyd. The Doors as a close second. But even if they might not top the others the Stones really belong on this list!!!

 

Pink Floyd FTW! Led Zeppelin fucking rocks too, though

 

I like them ^_^ So do many of my friends

 

The Grateful Dead.

 

Poor Iron Butterfly. Poor Lynard Skynard.

 

Iron butterfly is the best band! dont you guys play guitar i mean come on
in da godda of davida everybody likes that song!

i smoke weed and play guitar

 

in a gadda da vida honey, dont you know that im looovin you. in a gadda da vidda baby, dont you know that I'll ALways be true yea, bew bew bew bew bew bew bew bew bew bew bew bew bew bew bew bew.....

 

They were huge internationally, but not so much in the US. Anybody who cared about electronic keyboard music in the 70s and early 80s was deeply into ABBA. American FM radio was dominated at that time by guitar-oriented, blues-inspired rock and pop.

I was and still am a keyboard player, and I taught myself how to pick up pop keyboard parts and play them by ear while wearing out a cassette tape copy of ABBA's Greatest Hits Volume I. Most of those tracks were big hits only in Europe and Australia; minor hits here. Many of the unreleased songs on their other albums had a more distinctly European flavor, some almost like pop versions of Scandinavian folk songs.

They were definitely the best disco band of all time (remember Dancing Queen?), and pioneers in keyboard and vocal multitrack recording tricks. If you look strictly at worldwide sales figures, the two guys (Benny Andersson & Bjorn Ulvaeus) are still one of the most successful songwriting teams of all time, up there in the 350 million + range, about half the total for Lennon & McCartney.

ABBA paved the way for artists like Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga, whose sound has very little in common with early rock or classic rock. Don't get me wrong - I still love the blues and everything that has evolved from the blues. It just isn't the main influence in cutting edge pop today. Rhythmically and harmonically, it actually has more in common with classical music, if you listen very closely.

 

Alright Miss Keyboard Player - what's your take on Keith Emerson? While not achieving the commercial success of ABBA he certainly pushed the boundaries of electronic music way forward.

 

I think he had much more talent than anybody who played on an ABBA album. If you listen closely to ABBA and break it down, the individual keyboard tracks do not show outstanding virtuosity or creativity. Put together, it is a rich and complex wall of sound. The end result was all the fans cared about. The true genius there was in the songwriting.

There are several other people I would rank ahead of ABBA in this area, including Rick Wakeman, Gary Wright, James Young (Styx), and Larry Fast. They just didn't sell anywhere near as many records, so their influence was smaller. Recording under the name Synergy, Larry Fast released a groundbreaking all-computerized instrumental album in 1976 named "Sequencer". You would remember many of the tracks as having been played to death in trendy radio commercials from that period. I have the LP, in perfect condition.

 

Around 1971 I took a date to see Emerson, Lake, and Palmer at the Merriweather Post Pavillion. It was quite a show. But I also remember being turned off when Emerson destroyed his piano at the end. Seemed crazy to me.

I also remember taking my date home and finding out that her dad was a colonel in the Air Force. He was incredibly straight and I was not. He asked me where we had gone. I was afraid to tell him the truth, so I told him we had gone to a piano recital. He bought it.

 

Skynard!!!!!!!!!

 

Close enough.

 

gwar

 

they're strange.
I saw them once on an episode of Viva La Bam.

 

right now I'd say Cat Power

 

I put Iron Buttefly...cuz I knew no one else would and their album Metamorphosis is ILL SHIT SON!!!!

Slower than guns...

 

Tool is one of the best bands I've ever heard.

 

You've not heard very many I take it?

 

sorry to burst your bubble.
theres no such thing as best in music.
these guys are all so different.