The Smiley Smile Message Board

Nice little accolade from this great site
Yep, guess who is No1 - In some very very good company  ;D

1. The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys were more than just a group that sang about girls, cars and surfing. In fact, there are few bands that have had a greater impact on popular music. Without their 1966 masterpiece Pet Sounds, there never would have been Sgt. Pepper; without Smile, the follow-up record that broke down Brian Wilson and was shelved for decades, indie rock's DIY aesthetic would have sprouted in different, and less interesting, directions. And it didn't stop there: The Beach Boys' string of late-'60s and early '70s albums includes some of their greatest and most mature work. While they became a bickering nostalgia act in later decades, it doesn't damper their influence or the power of their eternal music.


https://ultimateclassicrock.com/top-50-american-bands/

I know these lists are objective. Cool to see the Beach Boys at number 1! But a band like Chicago should be much higher, while a band like the Byrds should be much lower. Regardless of who you think is better, Chicago made hit songs in 4 decades. The Byrds were only around for a few years.

I can argue that many bands should have been higher or lower, but damn!  Having The Boys at #1 makes everything alright.  A really incisive, albeit brief, article too.

Thanks for the link!

The Beach Boys and CCR are what I would call my favorite bands if I had to say so, therefor I like seeing this list. Then again, I don't really know too much about the other acts' catalogues that are on the list.
You have to wonder though, why the Everly Brothers are not on there, while duos certainly were seen as possible entries (e. g. Simon & Garfunkel).

It's a good list with good write-ups on each artist. It's hard to write an overview in one paragraph but they did a good job with The Beach Boys and other entries. Of course you'll get disagreements and opinions of who should be higher, but overall this is a good one for reference and the entries make sense.

I think the reason why the Everlys are not on the list is because they're not considered "classic rock", and they came before the period in the 60's where that genre usually starts.

What I found interesting, and what was hinted at in several entries, is how a lot of the artists on that list had their most influential and best-remembered music released within either a short period of a few years, or over 2 or 3 albums. For all the artists who had "comeback" success like Aerosmith, Tom Petty, The Eagles, etc. many had their most important work happen in what was usually a spurt of creativity that lasted less than 5 years.

I'd add The Beach Boys to that list. More or less, they had under a decade's worth of the music everyone is still talking about 50 years ago, and after that they were chasing that same success and surviving by going back to their initial run of 5 years or so full of their most beloved and influential music. They created an entire mythology and mindset through their music before the main creative force, Brian, turned 25. How do you equal that kind of impact over the next 50 years?   

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You're right. That's something I always forget to consider with these lists since some of my favorite artists (people that would be on my list) are from earlier times.

It’s always great to see them at or near the top of these lists but how many classic rock stations actually play their songs?

Very few if any, and that's been the case for decades. They were most often put into the "Oldies" radio format, even going back to the late 60's when the music was less than a decade old. They straddled the line between oldies and classic rock in their own music, especially in the early 70's, but the original and most popular run of the band's music was rarely if ever put into the "classic rock" radio format and rotation, which is why you don't hear them. If anything did crack through to classic rock playlists in later years it was Sail On Sailor. Some of the better and less formatted classic rock stations in the 80's and 90's would play tracks from Pet Sounds and the later 60's, early 70's material but usually on off-hour shifts.

And now that "oldies" format stations are playing 80's and 90's music and not even touching most songs made before 1980, I don't know what the genre would be called as of 2021 that would play the oldies that I know as oldies. Not "Footloose" or Whitney Houston, but oldies as in 50's and 60's.

Streaming and satellite radio changed the game anyway. Most radio is irrelevant in terms of those genres now anyway, most of it is programmed and the DJ's don't even have a say in what gets played. I listen to non-commercial radio like WXPN and WFMU anyway, and have been for years.