What's your favorite band ?

[freeloader1]

Well I like a variety of stuff as most people on the forum seem to but here are just a few of my favorite groups.

AC/DC, Aerosmith, Guns N Roses, Led Zepplen, The Rolling Stones, Van Halen, The doors, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Heart, Poison, Queen, Blue Oyster Cult, Creed, Alterbridge, Metallica

Pretty much any metal new or old and oddly enough I like a lot of classical like Mozart, Chopan, Beethoven, those are the main three

[BSchultz]

gotta say, i loves me some AC/DC. i hate how they get lumped into 80's hair metal, they're way above that. just hard blues.

[DudeEMETIB]

Originally Posted by Sideline Ho

anyone else like any of this shite?
Tom Waits
Joanna Newsom
Devendra Banhart
Billie Holiday
Regina Spektor
Nick Drake
Andrew Bird

Hell yeah.

Andrew Bird's
Mysterious Production of Eggs
is the shit.

[Masked Superstar]

Clutch > your favorite band

[quauth]

Originally Posted by freeloader1

Well I like a variety of stuff as most people on the forum seem to but here are just a few of my favorite groups.

AC/DC, Aerosmith, Guns N Roses, Led Zepplen, The Rolling Stones, Van Halen, The doors, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Heart, Poison, Queen, Blue Oyster Cult, Creed, Alterbridge, Metallica

Pretty much any metal new or old and oddly enough I like a lot of classical like Mozart, Chopan, Beethoven, those are the main three

How is that odd? Pretty much every song from every band you listed is a rip off of a piece from one of those three composers.

Not to knock your tastes, I'm down with pretty much everything you listed. Freddie Mercury's probably my favorite vocalist ever. Just don't know how you find such a stretch between metal and classical, since the former was born from the latter.

Ever listen to any Jethro Tull? Ian Anderson and Martin Barre pretty much paved the way for Ozzie. (Rather Tony Iommi, I suppose...)

[FrozenViking]

I'm really not into american rock music.. Sure, the guitar solos are awesome, but I think too much of it sounds the same. Metallica was here a couple of days ago, they were okay.

The Wombats =)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTEN359V8pI

[Zomniac]

My taste in music is so eclectic it's hard to pin down a "favorite."

So, in a seemingly vain attempt, at least initially, to come to the final answer, I used the following questions in a deductive quest to find my favorite Band. I began with a list of 33 bands that were forefront in my mind, and ones that I felt deserved to be on the list of candidates.
(I was not more scientific in the beginning selections, because that would take forever, and I most definitely would not know where the initial selection ended and the "journey," for lack of a better term, began.)


----------
1) Do you own everything that band has ever recorded?

In this day and age that's not hard to do with all the "complete collection" and "anthology" releases (not to mention "Discography Downloads", therefore, my list has been reduced only slightly to 30.


2) If I played one song from that band would you instantly recognize it, maybe even sing along to it, having memorized every note, beat, and lyric?

This one isn't a stumper for me either. I can still make a list of bands where this is possible for me. This does nearly nothing to narrow it down to one "favorite." My list stands at 28.


3) Of all the songs from that band, is there at least one that either never charted, or charted so low as to be unmentionable or unremarkable, that you love?

I find as a fan of music, it's difficult for me not to find that "gem in the rough" so-to-speak, as I do it with everything I listen to. There are some tracks by some bands that, even to this day, I cannot fathom why it didn't chart or didn't hit number one. My list is down to 25.


4) Can you, without a second thought about it, listen to any single album by that band all day without a break of any kind, even if it's "just background?"

This question actually would introduce previously excluded bands from my list, but I was strictly adhering to the "no-backsies" rule. The list remains, unfortunately, at 25.


5) Have you attended a concert by that band or if not, did you do everything in your power, including calling into a demeaning radio station contest, to attend the concert?

Here is where the list is substantially reduced. As I cross them off my list, I skip over the keepers, in some cases, with feelings of regret that I either didn't do enough, or never had the chance to see them live. The list is now 13.


6) If the band is no longer together, and any single member of that band went on to another career in music, did you follow them, buy their albums or attend their concerts?

I had to start getting more specific with my questions in order to conclude this to my satisfaction. I thought of this question because one of the bands in my list looks like it just doesn't belong there, and like all the others in the list just didn't stack up to that one. Not being the predjudging kind, however, I asked the question, because it is true of that one glaringly obvious choice. My list now stands at 5.


7) For any particular band, is it not enough to have simply listened to their art, or have you eagerly sought more information about the band, such as through watching biopics or "behind-the-music" documentaries, biographies of the members, or watched media interviews?

I specifically asked this question because that one bad was still bugging me, and I realized that I'm only singling it out because it had been a while since I had listened to them. This question, inevitably, eliminated that singularly intrusive and unwanted scribbling in the list, and now there is but 4.


8) As inevitably happens with most bands/artists as they age, or change, they often do re-imaginings or "covers" of their own older material... the question is: Do you enjoy listening to all of their versions of their own artistry without judgement?

I had to define to myself what I meant by "without judgement." I settled on the idea that my "favorite band" would be one that could "do no wrong." I may enjoy listening to one version over another, but I shouldn't despise anything they've done. In other words, if I think that in any time of their careers, that the band had "jumped the shark," they would be instantly eliminated. My list now is down to 3.
----------


I actually couldn't come up with a way to decide between them, since at this point, I feel, I've asked of myself every question I could to narrow it down. Therefore, my unadulterated conclusion is that I have three favorite bands: ABBA, Electric Light Orchestra, and Led Zeppelin.


Now I feel the need to explain the reason behind, not the psychoanalysis of it, each band choice.

A particularly hot babysitter of mine introduced me to ABBA and that is why I feel I'm not wierd or gay for liking them. I always looked forward to my parents' "date nights" because it meant I could go to that babysitter's house, she would plop me down in front of the record player, and put on The Visitors, or ABBA the Album. I'm sure she saw it as a way of getting one of the three unruly rug rats out of her hair for the night. One night, however, she was particularly excited, because she had just bought their newest album "Voulez-Vous" and had been listening to it all day. I remember her telling me she was excited to find out what I thought of it. Man I dug it and her plenty.


I got hooked on Electric Light Orchestra when I was 6 driving home very late one night with my Dad. He worked long hours in those days, and he would pick me up from school and take me with him to his boring job. My favorite part of all of that was the really long drive home, and looking back on it now, how deeply dark the nights seemed to me then. I first heard "Evil Woman" on the AM radio on one of those drives. I distincly remember the DJ introducing it as the "latest hit from the OTHER guys from Liverpool." My Dad and I both sung, horribly, to it as we pulled into the driveway.


My Dad and I spent a lot of time together before my teen years. Through some strange stroke of fate he had "scored" tickets from a friend of his to go see this "hot band." Being just a kid, I remember thinking that he was on the phone a LOT that day, and always anxiously so. I remember him saying to whoever was on the other end of the phone that this was probably their "last tour here."

That was the year my mom took my younger brother to go see his grandmother, her mom, in Wisconsin for the first time ever (he was 5 at the time, and they worked so much they never got the chance). They ended up staying through most of the spring and summer. Looking back on it now, I wonder if they were taking a break from each other... ponderous.

Anyway, my dad had a hell of a time trying to find a babysitter for me, let alone another person who could go with him. I was only mildly pissed that my favorite babysitter wasn't available (did I mention she had awesome tits?), because she was still a little new to me then, and I remember not liking her at first. (I just suddenly realized how out of order these stories are going to be now.)

Eventually my dad sat me down and explained to me what we were going to do, and that my mom would never find out about it. He made me promise to stay with him all night, no matter what. It was a long speech that ended in him getting bunches of cotton out of an aspirin bottle, stuffing it in my ears, and taking me on another wonderfully long drive from Toledo, Ohio to Pontiac, Michigan to go see Led Zeppelin. And, as he predicted, it was their last concert tour.

He embarrassed me in front of some "older" (probably teenage) girls in line before the concert by checking to see if the cotton was still in my ears. The girls laughed at me. I probably looked like a dork.

I vaguely remember at some point during the concert, tugging on his pants and complaining that I "couldn't see." I clearly remember the huge smile on his face as he lifted me up onto his shoulders. I also remember him swaying exaggeratedly, like a bucking bronco, supposedly to the music, but probably to scare the shit out of me.

20-some-odd years later I would slip up at Thanksgiving and blurt out our secret in front of my mom during my turn at "Giving Thanks." At first she thought it was a joke, then she comically got more and more upset throughout the meal. Eventually she got so upset, compounded by the fact that all of the guys (my brothers, I and my dad) were making fun of how weirdly angry she was being, that she stormed off and locked herself in her bedroom for the rest of the day while we stayed downstairs watching football. My dad turned to me as she slammed the door, and with an oddly wicked smile on his face, he said loudly but calmly over his shoulder, "and that's why we don't tell you anything."

He told me just a few weeks ago during on of our too few and far between reminiscing phone conversations that, aside from the births of me and my brothers and meeting and marrying my mom (he almost forgot to mention the "marrying" bit), that day was the best day of his life.

I could go on and on, because the flood of memories is almost palpable now, but I'll leave it for another time.

[FrozenViking]

Wow, how long did you spend on that?

It was interesting! Although I didn't read it. Keep up the good work!

[NowhereFast]

Originally Posted by FrozenViking

I'm really not into american rock music.. Sure, the guitar solos are awesome, but I think too much of it sounds the same. Metallica was here a couple of days ago, they were okay.

The Wombats =)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTEN359V8pI

...seriously...the wombats....

[JavaJoe]

If you judge the band on it's incredible music, hugeness and refusal to become sucky or become a sellout .... it's Pink Floyd hands down. Simply timeless music.