40 Best American Bands, Part One

This post is the first of what will hopefully be a series of posts detailing artists that, in my humble opinion, constitute the forty best bands in America. This list is inspired by similar ones on The Aquarium Drunkard and Information Leafblower blogs, so, without further ado, here goes.

Okay, that was kind of a lie. One last thing. This is in no particular order.

1. Wilco
There's not really any way to deny this band's rightful presence on the list, so I'm just going to put them right out there. Why are they on the list? Well, you know...they're Wilco. They've got a frontman who is probably the best songwriter since Bob Dylan, and deserves a place in the upper echelons of the craft. Plus, they manage to integrate alt-country with an obsession with experimentation, an obsession that has brought a couple of brilliant avant-garde musicians, drummer Glenn Kotche and guitarist Nils Lofgren. It's a damn good combination, that's paid off in some spectacular music.

2. Big D and Kid's Table
Bet y'all motherfuckers didn't see that one coming. Yeah, that's right, I'm putting a latecomer third wave ska band on the list. Why? Because they're good enough. The last two albums produced by the group, Strictly Rude and How It Goes have been knockouts, monumental efforts bolstered by one of modern ska's strongest horn sections and Dave McWane's lust-for-life songwriting. Strictly Rude was the more polished of the two, and demonstrated a refined approach to the slightly more traditional ska aspects of the band's sound, from the rave-up of "Noise Complaint" to the sunny, bouncy "Shining On" to the trad-ska examination of a bad-idea relationship of "The One," all capped off by a long dub excursion in "She Knows Her Way." How It Goes was a more disjointed effort, an everything and the kitchen sink style flawed ska opus. There are plenty of missteps, but for every one of those, there's a tremendous success, in everything from the supercharged anthem of bitterness of "New Nail Bed" to a paean to living the good life in "If We Want To." They've even got an ode to ultimate frisbee ("175") and horn-driven reggae instrumental (the title track). Big D's been evolving at a constant rate, and their next album, especially if it's the oft-discussed but heretofore unrealized Strictly Dub, could bring the ska world to its knees. Not bad for a crew of drunken, hedonistic Boston miscreants.

3. The Hold Steady
These guys keep Big D from being named the best party band in the country (it's a damn close race). I'm not going to discuss The Hold Steady at length, because I did that plenty in my last post. All I'm going to say is that they're a bunch of funny lookin' dudes making the music they want to make and enjoying the hell out of it, and that's a beautiful thing. Long live The Hold Steady.

4. The Flaming Lips
So their last album wasn't the greatest thing ever. It was far from the worst, and even probably ranked among the top fifty of the year. The Lips set a standard for themselves with Yoshimi and The Soft Bulletin that they weren't quite able to live up to. However, the band takes their songs to an entirely different place live, and their live show is what got them a place on this list. They throw down on a level rarely touched. Wayne Coyne just gets it, it being that innumerable number of things that define a great rock band. It is not just getting what goes into making a live show something incredible, something life-changing, something downright religious. No, Wayne Coyne certainly gets that, but, from everything he says, he seems to get what life should be about, in the most ideal of worlds. He's ddevoted himself to making some beauty in a world that, not to play into every cliche ever written, is too often filled with ugliness. Going to see The Flaming Lips is escaping from that ugliness for a couple of hours, embracing life and everything in it. He might not be the best singer, but hey, the message is more important than the voice.

5. Clutch
Clutch are the only real funk-metal band that has ever existed. Yes, I know what you're thinking, but, hate to tell you, you're wrong. Well, okay, there's maybe one exception, but that's 1970's Funkadelic. Red Hot Chili Peppers have never been funk metal. They've been funk, and, very occasionally, they've been metal, but never the two at once. Primus has never been funk metal. I guess maybe Faith No More has been, but they've been pretty much every genre andd every combination thereof for a brief period. But Clutch beats them all. Even on their most crushingly heavy songs, there's a palpable groove, a bit of bounce, a bit of snap. Plus, how many metal bands can write concept albums around the concept of embracing pacifism and sound totally fucking badass while doing it. I couldn't see any other band pulling it off with as much success as Clutch on the monumental Blast Tyrant. Not only that, they manage to pull off southern metal quite well, especially on their last three LP's, and especially on "Cypress Grove," a demented, heavy, twangy tale of murderous gangs of backwoods women. Not many bands can straight up rock as hard as Clutch. Millions of gearheards can't be wrong.

That concludes part one. The rest of the list will be forthcoming.