Dude youve not listened to Elephant completly through. Of the 14 tracks on there only 4 fit that acoustic "Folk Crap" description. Everything else fits your "high energy" defenition. I might expand those by saying some tracks (Black Math and Little Acorns) are straight metal. And has thier been a better remake an old song this decade like I just Dont know what to Do with Myself. Who would have tought Dusty Springfield could rock. Their most recent release Get Behind Me Satan can be described as a Folk on account that the majority of the songs are Unplugged, but thats what seperates The White Stripes from most of thier peers.... They take artistic risks. And if you track the trajectory of all the great rock bands they all tried different sounds and experimented as they grew. Lets be honest Incubus and The Foo FIghters have been making the same album since 95 and 99. This is not to say that The White Stripes or any of the current new rock acts are legandary, theres still not enough of a body of work. Although the Stripes have 5 cds and have gotten better with each. But i bet if you ask any older Generation Xer or boomer that grew up on 70's rock who knows rock who they thought had the best chance of becoming legendary I would guestimate they would say QOTSA and The White Stripes. And if radioaiplay is a criteria then explain why Sonic Youth has only had 2 songs (100% & Cool Thiing) played with consistency on the radio and would kick the living carp out of any of these bands in Rockdom. Oh and THE EAGLES OF DEATH METAL do rock but theyve only put out 1 album.
My roommate two years ago played nothing but Elephant for 3 weeks straight, including nights, just solid straight play for the whole time. I guess the folk ones just get to you enough that you forget the good ones. I was annoyed ****less by that CD and ended up snapping it on him (which i ended up having to buy him a new one later - on the condition that he only played it when i wasn't in the room). so yeh, i've listened to it, but not for a really long time - because those folk ones annoyed the hell outta me. Foo Fighters have maintained pretty much the same style of music the whole time, except that this year they put out an accoustic CD to tag along with their typical high energy rock album. That was a risk that paid solid dividends. And Incubus - well, clearly you haven't listened to Enjoy Incubus or Fungus Amongus, because if you had you would easily be able to notice a change in style. I prefer the Fungus Amongus and Make Yourself style over A Crow Left of the Murder - but they are all brilliant and they all work, proving that they can rock in a variety of ways.
Most of these bands are like the teams in baseball this year, in that they have their strong points, but also have their weaknesses. I have to agree with previous posts in this board in that I can't figure out what the big deal is with Green Day. I'm going with SOAD, but I was kind of dissapointed in Mesmerize .
Gotta agree on the Red Hot Chili Peppers.It seeemed like when they cleaned up these guys took it to another level....very tight.The Red Hots are both a far cry from their Cali Days and right where they've always been.The band has evolved so much over the past 5 years.
well then, we need to rip up the poll and redo it, making sure to include n'sync, creed and matchbox 20, three of the most popular american bands of the last decade.... rarely, especially in this homogenized, clear channel-controlled environment, will popularity sync with critical and/or artistic success.
jeff summed it up well: critical success popular success influence i personally think radio plays a huge role in the popular success - and it is VERY necessary, in my opinion, to have such success to be considered one of the best. and uh, about the backstreet boys - you need to play your own instruments to be considered a band. matchbox 20 - you need to play rock to be considered a rock band. and creed - well, they were considered at one point to be one of the better bands of their days, if they didn't go downhill so abruptly, and put out some more good stuff, i don't see why they couldn't be considered above other bands on the list such as the strokes and queens of the stoneage - but, they had a huge falloff - and now everybody hates them - mostly because their lead singer is a complete idiot.
Don't forget Live's "Throwing Copper" and Bush's "Sixteen Stone". We were really spoiled in the early-to-mid 90's.
