40 Best American Bands, Part Two

6. Tom Waits
The man released a three-disc b-sides and rarities collection, and it managed to be one of the best albums of 2006. Not only that, another such collection of equal magnitude seems like it would be totally appropriate. Few performers are as chameleonic as Tom Waits, and none who are are as consistently good. He went from piano-balladeer to a marimba-happy Kurt Weill on acid to a purveyor hyper-eclectic pseudo industrial, and hasn't remained entrenched in any of those identities (or any of a good dozen more) for more than a few fleeting songs. He's naturally had some missteps, but that's par for the course for anyone as prolific and longlasting as him. Anyone who can write a song like "Downtown Train" that remains enjoyable even after hearing Rod Stewart butcher the living hell out of it belongs on this list.

7. Prince
Why? 'Cause he's fucking Prince, that's why.

8.Drive-By Truckers
These guys went from being one of the better, rougher, drunker bands of the early nineties alt-country to now maintaining a status as one of the better, rougher, drunker rock and roll bands of the 2000's. They serve as, well, replacements for The Replacements, except a bit more southern, although just as fucked up. The group just went on an all-acoustic tour after the departure of the talented songwriter Jason Isbell. There's been some outcry now that the band's most widely exalted songwriter has gone, but now the weight of all the songwriting falls back on the shoulders of original members Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley. This does not bother me one bit. Cooley is one of the best straight rock and roll songwriters in the game, and Hood's no slouch himself. Isbell's contributions to is first album with the group, Decoration Day were decent, but far overshadowed by Cooley, brilliant on The Dirty South, where he contributed three of the band's best songs to date, and entirely overproduced and ill-fitting on their most recent A Blessing and A Curse. Hopefully their next album sees a return to their dark renderings of southern gothic songwriting while retaining some of the hard-rockin kick of Blessing.

9. The National
I'm predicting right now that this band will become pretty huge in certain circles by the time they release their next album. Their last two have been spellbinding, particularly 2007's Boxer, and their sound is not unlike that of Leonard Cohen, if Leonard Cohen could sing. There are hints of country, piano balladry, and late night rock and roll. Theirs is a morose blend, but with a certain touch of suicidal romanticism that leaves even the most hardened cynics at least a bit affected. Their obtuse lyrics results in them sometimes coming off as a bit pretentious, and it's not helped by the fact that it takes a few listens for their songs to truly make sense and become as effective as they need to be, but trust me when I say that The National are the real deal.

10. Wu-Tang Clan
I was tempted to put a Prince-esque entry here, but I figure one cop-out, true as it may be, was the maximum allowable per segment of this list. So I'll explain, at least a little bit. Wu-Tang revolutionized New York hip-hop, taking the lyrical advances of such master MC's as Big Daddy Kane, Rakim, and KRS-One, and spiking them with kung-fu movie aggression and the initially minimalist, vicious production of RZA. But it's more than just the full group releases that make them great. The amount of solo work that falls under the Wu-Tang banner is staggering, especially when they're blessed with having such a strong MC as Ghostface Killah making his bid for lyrical supremacy, creating not one but two very strong releases in a single year. The rest of the group are powerful in their own right, and the general public will see how they've coped with the loss of founding member ODB on the upcoming 8 Diagrams. Until then, they remain an almost untouchable self-contained hip-hop empire.