The Smiley Smile Message Board

A new poll by CNN.  The Boys are down big time, so let's at least make it more respectable.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/20/entertainment/greatest-american-rock-band-feat/

How in the world did Van Halen not even make the list?

I voted for our guys, but it doesn't matter, really. These polls come up all the time, different results every time. I think the BB's standing might be higher in 2016 if the Mike and Bruce show hadn't been on the road for the last...wow, almost 20 years! There's something to be said for making a concert appearance a special event, and the Eagles certainly understood this. Don't tour every year, and have a group of core members together when you do. For every music lover that thinks Pet Sounds or Smile when he/she hears the name "Beach Boys", there are probably 10 that think "oh, yeah, those cheesy guys with the beach balls Hawaiian shirts playing at our local casino".

The term "greatest", to me, should mean 'most influential', not just a numbers game of how many units were sold. With American bands, I think that really just comes down to The Beach Boys, The Byrds, or The Velvet Underground.

A lot of people associate 'rock' with macho. The term's either all-encompassing or someone should make it clear that gurning guitar solos are what they're talking about. When the last Donald Fagen album came out, people on the Hoffman board were enthusing about Weather in My Head as the best track. Why? Because it had as guitar part they could hang onto. A lot of the BB's best stuff doesn't have that and (shudder) they sing in high voices and only ever sang about fun, fun, fun, surf and cars. And, of course, that 80s - 90s live fun in the sun with dancing girls period turned off a lot of people who (probably wrongly) consider themselves SERIOUS music fans. Lists like this are always a lot of wank. Of course the Boys are the most influential and major American band. It would be difficult to see anyone else (excluding Dylan) with that kind of reach. I could say Lou Reed, but a lot of that stuff leaves me cold and as for his more esoteric stuff, I prefer what Bowie was doing.

Was there a poll there and now it's closed, or is it right in front of me and I'm not seeing it?

For me, the term 'rock' doesn't bring the Beach Boys to mind. There are modern genre terms like 'punk' that are (fairly) specific. 'Rock' is so vague and interpreted with so much variation, like 'pop' and even 'Rock and Roll'.

WELL SAID, especially the last line.  :woot :woot :woot

The Beach Boys, CCR, The Eagles, The Ramones all worthy of the title

I'd go with The Beach Boys, Aerosmith, The Eagles, CCR, The Doors, or Van Halen (who were noticeably absent from the poll). 

Apparently the poll came and went, but I find the subject just a little perplexing.  Yes, there are an alarming number of omissions (The Cars, anyone?  Where's the Steve Miller Band?). 

I find that generally, we Americans have poor memory and short attention spans.  I find it sad that a band's popularity will spike solely on current hype or (disturbingly) the news of the death of one of its members.

The poll is there, you just have to scroll down.

I'm still convinced that Nirvana wouldn't be heralded as legends had Kurt Cobain not died at the height of their (and grunge's) popularity. 

Ah - I now see where it would be if I didn't have a browser/security issue blocking it. Thanks.

This is a tossup between the Grateful Dead and the Beach Boys imo, all the others are a distant 3rd place

I like all The Doors albums though their career was brief. Ray & Densmore are amazing musicians.

I agree. Hard, though, for me to compare a band that only did, what, 3 or 4 albums, with a group that was making music for decades - the Beach Boys. Few bands have been as prolific as the BB's.  I think their only serious competition comes from the other side of the pond.

Listen to how experimental a lot of the BB stuff was between 66 and 70. I just made a Wild Honey to 20/20 mix for the car and it's outstanding.

Agreed... What about The Mothers of Invention? No.. Really?... ok.. I'll leave then..... :lol

1) Little Feat
2)The Beach Boys
3)CCR
4)Weather Report
5)Los Lobos

Doors recorded six official studio albums with Jim and a few more after he died

Erm, what about The Miracles or The Temptations or The Four Tops or The Supremes?

In addition to the six studio albums with Jim, there was Absolutely Live (1970), which eventually became part of the excellent double CD, In Concert. While the two studio albums without Jim, Other Voices (1971) and Full Circle (1972) were not up to previous standards for obvious reasons, the music still showcased "the band" as well as the individual talents of Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek, and John Densmore.

The later Bright Midnight Archives features some of The Doors' concerts from 1967-1970, and really shows what the band was capable of on a pretty consistent basis. Many of the "history books" will write that there was a decline post-Miami in 1969, but these live concerts, in my opinion, shows the band actually getting tighter and coming into their own. And, while Jim's behavior was reason for concern due to his alcoholism, I find the overwhelming number of his live performances to be outstanding.

I vote for The Doors.   

These types of polls ought to be done by decade, especially as we get further from the outset of rock/pop music.    There's too many good ones deserving of acknowledgement who get left out.   The Cars were mentioned, and my lord, I remember when that first album came out - I thought, "They're like the f***ing Beatles!"  Every song seemed to be a hit and they wrote great pop songs.   I was over zealous as a kid perhaps, they're not the Beatles, but they were important and inspirational in their time.   Van Halen?  There you have the Beatles of hard rock - how many hits did they have?  I dunno, lots, right?  Again, pop music, gussied down toward head bangin' territory; important and highly inspirational.   And love him or not, no one out Rothed the David Lee.  ;)

I'm blocked out/can't vote.

The Band doesn't count.  80% Canadian...and we won't share them as Americans.  You can have that republican guy masquerading as an American though.  Nirvana?  Please.  NO sympathy votes.

1.  Beach Boys/Brian
2.  CCR/John
3.  Eagles/Don
4.  Bob Seger and The Silver Bullet Band
and...and...and...maybe 5.  Chicago
6.  Santana/Carlos

then dropping down a level...
7.  ZZ Top/Billy
8.  George Thorogood and the Destroyers
9.  The Steve Miller Band

and the only guy no longer still contributing

10  Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble

7 Honourable mentions to Aerosmith, Van Halen, Little Feat, Grand Funk, The Rascals, The Allmans, Lynyrd Skynrd

And Joe Bonamassa would be WAY UP the list in the top 4 but HE'S not a group.

The UK kicks our North American butts BIG TIME in this kind of 'poll'  They'd have 6 or 7 of the top 10 and maybe 18 of the top 25.  [Can't forget down under and AC/DC.]

I know...the Association, the Turtles,  but really...Peter Paul and Mary anyone?

Not sayin' they should be Number 1, but CSNY? The American Beatles. America's first supergroup. First band to do an all stadium tour. American royalty even though half the band wasn't American!

These are great groups. I'm having trouble with the definition of 'rock'

Yes, me too. It's weird. Personally I see more in common between, say, The Beach Boys and The Temptations than The Beach Boys and Metallica and yet it's the latter who are grouped together in the same list.

Vocal groups like the Temptations and the Four Tops or the Mamas and the Papas are for some reason never regarded as "bands" like groups such as the Beach Boys or The Cars. And duos seem to have their own weird standing, a strange place that isn't exactly a band and isn't a solo act. Otherwise you think you would see the Everlys, the Righteous Brothers, Simon and Garfunkel and Jan & Dean on these lists, but you don't.


My list of greatest American bands are:

1. The Beach Boys
2. Allman Brothers Band
3. Heart
4. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
5. ZZTop
6. Journey
7. Pearl Jam
8. The Jackson 5
9. Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship
10. The Eagles

Now if you include vocal acts and duos, then it would be a different list. But for whatever reason "band" seems to be regarded as  "guys with instruments and at least one singer"

I have yet to meet someone on the earth that doesn't like the Beach Boys, so I'm not sure how they're not walking away with it.  How soon we forget, I suppose...

If more people understood that modern music is recorded the way it is, because of Good Vibrations, maybe they'd come around...

I think we're just so far removed from the 60's though, there's less and less people who saw them in their prime and can vouch for how big they were. 

The eagles are great, but they never did anything groundbreaking, they just made good music.  The Ramones, in my personal opinion, were groundbreaking but didn't make good music (LOL)

It's all subjective but for me it comes down to the Beach Boys, and the Doors.  The Beatles and the Stones are #1, and #2, Beach Boys #3 if we're trying to rank them.












Fortunately, though, we get to listen to all of them and this whole thing is nonsense.

I would pick the groups that spawned CSNY, except that rules out the Hollies; Springfield? Again, that brings up the short career/catalog question. But the Byrds, no problem. They had it all - a career of reasonable length with very interesting twists and turns; commercial success, at least in the early years; great harmonies; great guitar parts that you remember forever; and great songwriting - true, not all of it was theirs, but there's something to be said for the ability to recognize great songs and the ability to mold and adapt them to your own sound.

Not ranking either of this #1, or even top five, but I think they should be on the list:

Styx
Journey
Heart

As always, definitions make this kind of thing murky. What's rock 'n' roll, what's a band (versus a duo or something, as mentioned above), and how do you define great?

My personal picks without regard to either record sales or impact on the general public would probably be:

The Beach Boys
The Velvet Underground
Zappa/The Mothers of Invention
Buddy Holly/The Crickets
Big Star

I was tempted to include Dylan + the Band (though they're mostly Canadian...), but that whole "is it a real band, or an artist with backing musicians?" question came into play. Ditto for Prince and the Revolution. I thought about a lot of Motown groups, but had similar misgivings. For some more modern--but still long-standing--acts that don't deserve top ranking consideration at all but are creeping up my lists, I'd start keeping an eye on Wilco, the Mountain Goats, and of Montreal.

Any such poll that doesn't feature The Shaggs is useless.

YES :lol

They Might Be Giants!!

Good points, Ron.

In regards to your point about being groundbreaking.  Personally, I think when talking about greatness, the first factor to be considered in the quality of the material. 

With groups like The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Black Sabbath, or Van Halen they're groundbreaking and have great catalogs.

Then, you have bands like The Eagles, Boston, Journey, Styx, et al who didn't really break any new ground, but continued to release quality rock music. 

You mention the Ramones.  I'll say Nirvana as a band that were extremely influential.  But, personally, I think they changed rock for the worse. 

There was a time when REM would be on such lists but they have been forgotten.

Time is always important in this stuff, first to get someone in, then to shove them out. The cycle may continue indefinitely. The current styles always affect what previous bands are respected, as do generations' own advancement. I think it was Jackson Browne in the Endless Harmony doc who talked about that with the Beach Boys. I'd say a lot of mega-hit bands from the '80s are just coming back into that sphere, while a lot from the '90s are too recent to have done so.

In the last year, I'm starting to notice more 90s nostalgia.  For the life of me, I don't know why.  Even a lot of the bands I like were putting out bad music in the 1990s.  So, I think you'll start to see that with 90s music very soon. 

In the mid to late 70s, 50s music and fashion had a revival - late 80s, the 60s - 90s, 70s...

Exactly. And it doesn't just impact the new music being created, but the appreciation of the old music being reintegrated. It's funny how the greatness of a piece of recorded music that hasn't changed at all can change so much from year to year...

I would agree with that, and I'm a big Nirvana fan from way back.  This prob. isn't the best thread to talk about it, but what the hell.  Here's how I see it, I've seen it with other bands in other genres, too.

Basically, Kurt was great, Nirvana were great, I love their music and liked what they did.  However, the end result of what they did, like you said, was they made Rock different, which made other bands after them change their sound for the worse.  You wouldnt' have even had a steaming pile of a band like Creed if it weren't for Kurt Cobain openly whining in his music before Creed got here and took it to the next, horrible, level.  From time to time you get guys like Kurt Cobain who are extremely talented, and make it look easy... which opens the door for people to come along with no talent, and attempt to do it easily.  Without the talent the music is just god-awful.






Taylor Swift is a good example.  Taylor Swift makes it look easy and if you don't pay attention, you might think she's a no-talent hack.  She's not, though... she's extremely talented, and because her songwriting is so strong and she understand what she's doing, it doesn't matter that she doesn't have the greatest voice in the world.  It's nothing more than average.  Unfortunately what this does is make every kid who can't sing think that they're just as talented. 



In Country Music, it was Big & Rich.  Here's a couple guys who are incredibly talented, and they walked the line and basically created this "Bro Country" crap that's just god awful.  THEIR music that's "Bro Country" is tolerable and kind of interesting, the essentially tribute bands that they 'inspired' though are pretty much all no-talent hacks and now we're stuck with that in Country.   

With some obvious exceptions, always thought they were four guys in search of a good song, especially when they were only three. The Doors leave me cold; CCR have some great songs and then they have some great variations on those songs and then they have some variations...; as for Mr Reed, I love his New York album and I love the early Velvets but the 'experimental' stuff does nothing for me. I think you might have a case for Zappa, but maybe he was too obtuse for a lot of people. The Byrds? Not really. It's not like I don't like this stuff (with the exception of The Doors), I just don't think they're on the same level as Brian and the Boys in terms of invention and hooks and melody. I know they're largely Canadian, but, for all their career was pretty short, I'd take The Band over any of the above, with The Beach Boys and Steely Dan ahead of them. If I could limit my Springsteen output to Born to Run tthough Tunnel of Love, I'd have him on my list, but then - despite his band - we're heading into singer-songwriter territory where, for me, Dylan, Simon and Newman are out in front (and Mitchell and Young - though I far prefer the former - if we're allowing Canadians).

I guess the problem is at the end of the day "GREATEST" is subjective.
A great musician or singer is a little easier to list. Also it's tricky when there's a mix of talent levels for ex. I like Steely Dan's music but Fagen's voice, to me, is ugly.

Nirvana left me cold but it's just individual opinion.

Hate that word rock. (Said that before.) Pop is broader. In my jaded opinion.

Captain, I do so agree about your first three but to them I'd like to add Captain Beefheart/Magic Band. Choosing a number five is tough----The Byrds? The Dead? Probably one of those two. Pity about The Band being four-fifths Canadian.  ;D

I debated the Magic Band, too. And then another couple dozen bands, at which point I realized maybe I ought to cut it short.

As for words like rock, yeah ... I think those sorts of subgenre designations are fine for general description, but they're all fuzzy around the edges at best. Even bigger forms are fuzzy around the edges (e.g., when does jazz become blues, rock, or "classical," which itself is a bad word to begin with?). So I'm with you on pop, as it's at least pretty generally understood to mean popular music as played and listened to mostly by people who don't go to school to learn it. And within that, for me, are pop, rock and roll, folk, blues, country, and the subgenres associated therewith. Still fuzzy at the edges, but at least the edges are further out and less consequential to most conversations.

The struggle with terminology... I use 'popular' where you suggest 'pop' above because I'm hoping people will understand that I don't mean 'pop' in the narrow sense. But now I've just realized they might think I mean top 40 - 'popular' meaning broadly liked, rather than 'popular' meaning from the people.
What to do?

Realize you'll be misunderstood and just not worry about it.

Not for us Canadians! Now a list of Greatest Canadian Rock Bands of All Time would be interesting for a discussion amongst predominantly non-Canadians (here, of course, there's a new list every other week...)

Surprised I'm not seeing more support here for the Byrds. There was a time when they were always mentioned as one of the most influential bands in rock music. Have they fallen out of favor, like REM?

Rock bands?

I can see how you might feel that way. My wife thinks his voice is ugly too.

Elvis's early band Bill Black, Scotty Moore & D.J. Fontana.

They are groups, but not really bands, as they did not play instruments; not really rock, I would call their music soul.

Sure.

Some of them did play instruments but what about, say, The Mamas and the Papas? Would they count or not because most of the members didn't play instruments?

I suppose my issue is perhaps with the genre classification. I wonder why it makes sense to pair up The Beach Boys, KISS, and Metallica and not The Beach Boys, The Temptations and The Four Tops. Because to me, if you are going to group together bands based on similarities, the latter makes far more sense than the former. What's more, I'd say that The Beach Boys could be as soulful as those bands, and those bands had as many rock elements in them as just about any of the bands in this list.

Why do these polls always have such an obsessive definition of "American"? You know, there's two whole continents of America, not just the United States.

I don't see why The Band, or hell, even something like Los Lobos shouldn't be counted just because they're a few miles across a border.

I consider 1970 to be their peak as a live band.

I agree.

As in "The Americas"----good point. At the risk of being pelted with offal, this is my revised list:

The Beach Boys
The Magic Band/Captain Beefheart
The Band
The Mothers of Invention/Frank Zappa
The Velvet Underground   

All right, in discussing the best "Greatest American Rock Band," we've now questioned the definitions or wisdom of criteria for each of the four words involved. What is greatest? Why (or what is) American? What is rock? What is (or why stick to) a band?

And that's why these polls exist: because we go on about them.

Greatest AMERICAN rock band? Well, who could be more AMERICAN than Paul Revere and the Raiders?

The Ventures should be on a list like this.

I agree, but I'm biased - I'm from the Northwest.

Definitely agree. Eddie alone was one of the most innovative guitarists of the late 70's early 80's - and I do not have to go into why. Thousands of people learned to play guitar because of him and his influence is all over the 80's music.  To add to that, they have tremendously catchy songs (especially Roth-era) that are instantly recognizable. Love him or hate Roth, he was a great showman.

Roth is still a great showman.  He just struggles with the vox these days.  I think Van Halen was a major force with both Roth and Hagar.  Granted, the Van Hagar stuff wasn't as innovative, but it's still really good hard rock. 

I'm a fan of Extreme, and I think the Gary Cherone thing COULD HAVE worked if done right.  But, the songs just stunk. 

To say nothing of The Sonics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGpActuZbGc

The originators of grunge!

What about Booker T and the MGs? Coasters? ? and the Mysterians? The Four Seasons? Replacements?  Sonic Youth? Pixies? Pavement? Bikini Kill? Sly and the Family Stone? Blondie? Talking Heads? Phish? Neutral Milk Hotel?

What about the Ventures? Platters? Count Five? Four Tops? Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers? Foo Fighters? Posies? Flypaper? the RF's? Tower of Power? Cheap Trick? Devo? Persay? Third Flight?

Not the greatest, but I think Blue Oyster Cult should at least be in the conversation.

The band is so much more than Don't Fear the Reaper, Godzilla, and the cow bell.  Their first five albums are amazing.  Their early 80s output with Martin Birch producing is almost as good. 

Interesting. I read elsewhere that it's Nirvana (who I do not tolerate).

The Sonics were 60s. So they had 3 decades on Nirvana (a very overrated band IMO).

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Nirvana is overrated.  It's been 25 years, and I still don't understand the attraction.  And, no offense to any of their fans, but IMO, I highly doubt they would be placed so highly on so many lists of rock bands had Kurt Cobain had not died when they and grunge were at their peak. 

The Leadbelly and Vaselines covers are pretty much the only songs by them that I can stand to listen to.

Early death does much to elevate the popularity of rock and rollers. I mean - and I don't mean to diss any of the following, who were all great in their own way - but why is Buddy Holly revered much more today than, say, the Everly Brothers or Rick Nelson? There's a mystique attached to the Jim Morrison's and Jimi Hendrix's of the world because they left us early. If you stick around for a long time, eventually the public sees you trip and fall.

Very true LS,

This is one of the reasons The Beach Boys aren't as revered as The Beatles.  The Beatles called it a day in 1970 with few blemishes on their record. 

Same goes for Led Zeppelin over The Who and Deep Purple. 

Nothing against The Beatles or Led Zeppelin, as both are great bands, but they did their legacy a great favor by packing it in early. 

It's the old show biz axiom: leave the audience wanting more. Worked for George Costanza.

Yes, that is true. Although I am glad our Boys continued and gave us a few more good records, and the opportunity to see them in concert.

I agree.  Same with The Who and Deep Purple. 

The Beach Boys were The Greatest American Band Of All Time™ from 1962 to 1980, after which R.E.M. took that title.

(http://s15.postimg.org/z5hqlbpo7/hell_to_the_no.png)
There's some math humor for ya, folks.

Thanks, I'll be here all week, Tuesday to Friday!

I think Ronnie James Dio deserves a mention as a great American artist. 

He's always had Europeans in his band though, so that's why his name never comes up in these lists.  (ie. Ritchie Blackmore, Tony Iommi, Vivian Campbell). 

Greatest american rock band?

1) THE BAND !!!!

2) Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
3) The Mothers of Invention (even though they weren't really a band, more like Zappa and a bunch of other musicians)
4) The Doors
5) The Beach Boys
6) Creedence Clearwater Revival

Talking Heads? Are they a ROCK band or not?

It's that word "rock" getting in the way again. In fact I deleted it from the title to this post. ;D

Then there's the 'band.' I suppose that precludes Motown artists and post-Motown Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, Elvis, Aretha, James Brown, Prince (unless one counts the Revolution)?

The poll cited in the OP says "Greatest American Rock Band." 

I would consider The Talking Heads rock, but not the Motown, Soul, R&B stuff. 

I was responding to John K dropping the 'rock'. To me, it's a pretty arbitrary category, as is 'band'. Neither can be firmly defined which makes any answer to the question debatable not just on the word 'greatest', which I think is meant to be the point, but also on 'rock' and 'band'. Those terms just render the whole exercise pointless. Too many variables.

Did we annex Canada? Or is this being interpreted by continent instead of country? (The band was, what, 4/5 Canadian?)

This is my real answer

To be incredibly nit-picky, Canada is American but I recognize that's not how most people think of it and that America tends to be a short form of United States of America.

That would explain the exclusion of Neil Young and Rush. 

So 'American' is debatable as well.

I say we tackle "Time" next!

Semantics

"Some antics???  I'm always up for some antics." 

Excellent! For example, pre-Big Bang, was there a universe in which life, and music, developed? If so, do those bands count? Because as I understand it, that exists outside of time, time and space being intertwined and beginning at BB (even if there were predecessors or others). Fucking physics always ruins rock music polls.

Physics and Nirvana.

Nirvana - Throwing a wretch into every music poll done since April 1994. 

If band can be one person, then I want to revise my list to be:
Chuck Berry
Little Richard
Bob Dylan
Elvis Presley

Thieves!!!  :o   Trying to make off with The Band and claiming them as American? ::)  Really? ???  And CSN and Y?   :ninja   They're only 50% "American" :police:

Does that suddenly mean that Jay and the Americans were Canadian? :lol  They were just visiting that "little cafe just the other side of the border"... ... ...IN MEXICO!!! >:D



Tell you what.  You guys can HAVE Justin Beiber.  :ahh



What next?  You'll make off with The Guess Who?  BTO?  The 5 Man Electrical Band?  April Wine?  Rush?  Loverboy?  Trooper?  Steppenwolf?  Oh and the LEAD singers from Blood Sweat and Tears [David Clayton Thomas], The Mamas and the Papas [Denny Doherty] ... ... ...?  Canadians.  The Drummers from Mountain [Corky Laing] and 3 Dog Night [Roy Snead] ... ... ...Canadians.  The Guitarists from The Rascals [Gene Cornish] and the Lovin Spoonful [Zal Yanofsky] ... ... ... Canadians.  And that's just part of the big picture.  There's The Tragically Hip, Lighthouse, Crowbar...with a C for Canada...Saga, Triumph,  The Ugly Ducklings, The Trews, Barenaked Ladies, Colin James and the Little Big Band, Great Big Sea, The Jeff Healey Band, Glass Tiger, The Sheepdogs, Blue Rodeo, Red Rider, Max Webster... ... ...and Nickelback...well OK...we won't count THEM. :-[  There's Chilliwack, The Powder Blues...The Downchild Blues Band, McKenna Mendelson Mainline...and we're not even talking about individual Pop icons like Leonard Cohen, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell or Alanis Morrisette.  Then there's the French [Francophone] side of the Canadian coin.  And it's impressive too.


Music.  Ain't it Grand?   :drunks
-----------------------------------------

I wonder... ... ...if there's an American band...and by that I mean a REAL American band...that's played in Canada more than the Beach Boys have...including Brian added in as a bonus?  I doubt it.  [I'm not counting those package tours that come through every year with 5 or 6 acts  doing 4 or 5 songs each.  I mean as a full show/as headliners.]  The Beach Boys [and Brian] have always been HUGE up here.  :hat

Lee,

I think you'd be hard pressed to find any American Band who has played as many shows as The Beach Boys / Brian Wilson. 

I wonder what the ratio is of population who've heard "Fun Fun Fun" in person at least once. 

Boo ya!

Hey, while you're naming contemporary bands, I would throw in the Rheostatics since they are/were, in my view, Canada's Beach Boys. Not that they sounded like the Beach Boys but that they created a kind of Canadian mythological sound in the same way that Brian Wilson articulated California in his music.

Currently the #1 voted American band is....other!

I guess if a Canadian can run for the U.S. presidency then Canadians can be in the "greatest American rock band'.  On the other hand, isn't Canada part of North AMERICA??  And aren't national borders just so passé (sarc).

Probably because Van Halen wasn't an option. 

 :)

Don't forget Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Leslie Feist, Stars, Metric, Rheostatics, Sloan, Tegan and Sara, Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, Moxy Fruvous...

Have you heard about the Rheostatics reunion?

Once they're done with Canada, can someone list all the US bands please thanks