American Band Championship Belt

Grantland can be entertaining.  It can also be an entirely useless wasteland car wreck of your time versus inane pop culture clickbait versus way too much NBA coverage that I don't care much about.  This post is about that frustrating but entertaining combo.  I thought I'd share it with you and also have a few comments of my own.

My friend Joseph sent me a link to an article up today called The American Band Championship Belt, which attempts to award a championship belt to the best American Band for each of the past fifty years.  Like many of the lists that people make on the Internet, this one is a fun thing to read, but is also immensely frustrating.  Not just because I disagree with it, but because the author just cops out entirely by lumping multiple years together and therefore ignoring gigantic American music trends.  He says that the 1980's was the hardest decade to figure out, but then lumps together the years so that he only has to give the belt to Talking Heads, Black Flag, R.E.M., Run D-M-C, and Guns n Roses.  Then he washes right over the 90's with Nirvana, Wu Tang, and Outkast.  That's it.  Three bands get the 90's.  Look, I think Outkast is fantastic, but to say that they were the absolute top American band for all of 1996 through 2000 is insane.

Things I think he missed:

• During that five year Outkast reign, Notorious BIG put out Life After Death and Tupac put out All Eyez on Me.  Come on, man.  Outkast didn't even put anything out in 1997, and yet you think the overlapping excitement of ATLiens was somehow better than Life After Death?  Eminem's Marshall Mathers LP also came out in 2000, which ought to earn some sort of nod for that year versus the crickets he gives it here.
• I will admit that the majority of other stuff that was large in the late nineties was good to forget.  Lots of boy bands, Spice Girls, and Celine Dion on the charts right about then.
• No mention at all of Green Day?  They single-handedly brought punk out of the gutter and into the living room of America.  Maybe the true punk people are mad about that or something, but to say they had no significance on American musical culture is silly.
• I understand that he probably said U2 were out because they are Irish and all that, but they might as well have been American by Rattle & Hum.
• No Chili Peppers?  The Chilis are quintessential America, sneering funk and roll.  It is one thing to have a different preference than me for music, but come on.  Not even one of the honorable mentions? The Chili Peppers rocked my world in the early 90's and then ruled radio for years to come.  
• Other things I think ought to have at least received an honorable mention - Foo Fighters, Weezer, Fugees.  And Queens of the Stone Age, Metallica, Vampire Weekend, and Pearl Jam needed more than just an honorable mention.  
• Deerhunter?  I'm about to give them a listen, but come on.  You give 3 full years to a band, saying that they have heavy cultural significance, when I have no clue who that is?   I guess Kings of Leon didn't come out and revitalize southern rock and roll and sell a jillion albums in 2007, 2008, and then 2010.  Most of the stuff that was big during this time gets zapped by his rules about solo people - Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Drake, Kesha, Usher, etc.  But I think choosing Deerhunter here is one of those moves seeking approval from Pitchfork and the other music know-it-alls.

I'm going to use this article as a positive influence on my music and give some of these things a try.  I've already listened to a bunch of the Minutemen, and only now do I realize that they are most of the later band Firehose, which the Chili Peppers told me to listen to on Mother's Milk 25 years ago.  Cool.  

Anyone else have thoughts about missing bands on here?