Sunday 17 February 2013

The Great British Band (it's official ...)

I couldn't resist, of course.

I've really enjoyed using spurious rating systems to make spurious lists, having already applied that to Great Albums and Great Number 1 singles.

Having already written a post where I talk in detail about what I think makes a Great British Band, I put my money where my mouth was, and used the criteria I outlined (or quite close to them) to try to judge who the best British bands of all time were.

A little reminder of the key section from that post

I suppose most of my favourite music is American, but I think there is a great concept of a great British band out there, and these are those who I believe fall under that banner, and why.

[Right from the start, I'll say this is kind of a  alternative to the Manchester scene in terms of timeline and so I'm keeping it post-1977. It's obvious that the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Kinks are great British bands, they influence most of these, sometimes pretty directly, I don't think there's much point in including them. But I think the Beatles and the Kinks, in particular, do embody what I'm talking about]

The Clash
Manic Street Preachers
Dexys Midnight Runners
Belle and Sebastian
Madness
Super Furry Animals
Blur

I have something very specific in my head I probably won't be able to nail down - there are plenty of other Britsh bands from this period i love or really like - The Jam, Teenage Fanclub, Ash, Spiritualized, countless solo artists, and i'm not dismissing more poppy bands who other people find great, Pet Shop Boys, even Take That, it's just I have come to group these bands together in a way and see them as the definition as what I love in British music:

So what are the factors?

-A consistent and strong back catalogue
-Uniqueness
-A sense of anger
-The feeling that they come from a particular time and place
-Creating their own little world
-Being unambiguously British, not quasi-American
-A sense of being a gang
-Eclecticism
-Not being in thrall to the past, but being hugely learned in rock and pop history
-The ability to reinvent
-Being a cult
-Not being what they initially appear to be
-Having the ability to cross into the mainstream but not staying there
-Wit
-Having a visual style all their own which feeds back into the music
-The fact that their fans will actually argue about what their best album/albums are
-Actually writing about something real
-Being unafraid of ridiculousness

So, like I say, I tried to use those criteria as well as I could, though I mixed them up a bit and refined them. And you can see above where my sympathies lie. So don't be surprised to see some of them near the top of the list.

Then again, I knew that my criteria would be faulty if the Beatles did not top the list. That's obvious. So, thankfully, they did, easily.

I tried to consider every possible contender from every possible genre - this was mainly possible but there were a few bands like, say OMD and Jethro Tull, who I felt unfair assessing, as I'm largely unfamiliar with the bulk of their work. So be it. I did the best I could.

There is a shocking bias towards male white bands. That says more about the UK music scene, i think, than it does about me (though of course it says a fair bit about me) because if it were American bands, that would be very different, in terms of both massively successful, influential bands and my own tastes.

I was pretty strict in terms of what constituted a British band - so, I didn't allow solo artists with backing bands, like Elvis Costello and the Attractions and the Spiders from Mars. Bands had to be properly British, rather than just having the odd British member, like, say Crosby, Stills and Nash. Fleetwood Mac only just qualified.

Anyway, I feel like I've got it wrong, that there are a few bands in there that shouldn't be and some not that should be. Who have I missed totally? Who's in totally the wrong place?


1 The Beatles
2 The Rolling Stones
3 Blur
4 Madness
5 The Clash
6 Radiohead
7 Super Furry Animals
8 Led Zeppelin
9 Manic Street Preachers
10 Queen
11 Belle and Sebastian
12 The Jam
13 Pet Shop Boys
14 The Kinks
15 The Cure
16 The Smiths
17 The Who
18 Dexys
19 The Small Faces
20 Pink Floyd
21 Primal Scream
22 Massive Attack
23 Arctic Monkeys
24 Take That
25 Fairport Convention
26 Stone Roses
27 The Proclaimers
28 Oasis
29 New Order/ Joy Division
30 The Pogues
31 Elbow 
32 The Human League
33 Fleetwood Mac
34 Squeeze
35 Charlatans
36 The Bee Gees
37 Adam and the Ants
38 Eurythmics
39 The Specials 
40 Portishead
41 Jamiroquai
42 Girls Aloud
43 Supergrass
44 Slade
45 Iron Maiden
46 Chemical Brothers
47 Tindersticks
48 Pulp
49 OMD
50 Bloc Party
51 Franz Ferdinand
52 T.Rex
53 Soul 2 Soul
54 Jethro Tull
55 Jesus and Mary Chain
56 Mogwai
57 Gorillaz
58 Depeche Mode
59 The Prodigy
60 Kasabian
61 McFly
62 Dr Feelgood
63 Embrace
64 Snow Patrol
65 The Sex Pistols
66 Black Sabbath
67 Cream
68 The Bluetones
69 Wings
70 Doves
71 Idlewild
72 The Zombies
73 Genesis
74 Spiritualized
75 Muse
76 Ash
77 Faithless
78 The Style Council
79 Delgados
80 The Verve
81 The Shadows
82 Frankie Goes to Hollywood
83 Cocteau Twins
84 James
85 The Beautiful South
86 Tears for Fears
87 Scritti Politti
88 The Spice Girls
89 Simple Minds
90 UB40
91 The Stranglers
92 Bananarama
93 Underworld
94 The Hollies
95 Simply Red
96 Incredible String Band
97 Teenage Fanclub
98 Duran Duran
99 Divine Comedy
100 Suede

4 comments:

  1. Obviously my knowledge of muisic is so informed by yours that I'm unlikely to spot errors and ommissions, but...

    XTC are pretty firmly in the wheelhouse of the stated criteria. I'd also like to See Prefab Sprout and Supergrass in the list, but I can believe they fall short on the numbers. I suppose none of these three bands quite created enough of a sense of a gang / creating their own world, but they win big on the consistency, reinvention and wit scores.

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  2. Supergrass are there, probably higher than you'd think. Yes, XTC were considered, indeed they were just outside the top 100 and suffered only for my limited knowledge of them - an imperfect study really. And Prefab Sprout - damn, you're right, I neglected them. I'll do them now ... yes, you're right, they'd have come in the 80s. And i know there are other indie legends like Orange Juice etc i have neglected. Another thing i should have said is that i tried to avoid what were essentially solo projects masquerading as bands - the band essence was important in all this - missing people like Costello, Bowie etc might seem odd, but i think it's reasonable

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  3. I agree that it's reasonable; also interesting to note that I immediately tried to list my top 10 British solo artists, and found it really quite tough to come up with 10, which wasn't at all the case with bands.
    Libertines?

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  4. ooh, the Libertines, don't get me started. They came about 120ish, probably i was pretty harsh, especially considering i wasn't harsh on the Stone Roses, and there's a definitely similarity.
    But the Stone Roses did one great album, whereas the Libertines did half a good album.
    Yes, it may be true about solo artists, a lot of them like Lennon, McCartney, Weller, would you count only their solo work? With solo artists at least the list would be a lot more inclusive. I do feel the prominence of the white male in my above list is pretty shocking, but there we go.

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