Top 25 Rock Bands

Volume 1: 25 - 21

If you followed me on Rateyourmusic, you might recall that I made a similar list back in ‘22. A Top 50 rather than a Top 25, and believe me, the shortening was deliberate; I wanted to get down to the meat of it, and be a little more honest with myself about who made the cut and where they fell. Because I was never quite happy with that list. Stick around a place like RYM long enough, especially if you’ve got a following and a reputation and whatnot, and you find yourself stuck in certain traps. Tastemaking, credibility consolidating, this weird need to be “objective.” So here I throw up the big “fuck-it” and make the list the way I want to. I like to think it’s more honest than the last one out, therefore a little less cool but therefore also a lot better. And because I like keeping these kinda bite-sized and love having a backlog, we’re going five bands at a time. 

25: The Replacements. In another world, these dudes landed the rock-star status that just barely slipped out of their fingers in the present timeline. After all, they had the right ingredients. Paul Westerberg wrote great songs, their catchy songs and clever lyrics bolstered by his ragged sincerity. And his band played them with all sorts of thunder; Bob Stitson in particular made a brilliant foil for the bossman, his crashing guitars sometimes underpinning their tumult (“Bastards of Young”) and other times complicating it. The prettiness of Stitson’s slide on “Sixteen Blue,” for instance, gives the song all sorts of dimension. And if things happened that way, who the hell knows. Maybe “Alex Chilton” would’ve soared up the pop charts like it always deserved to, and maybe the alternative revolution would’ve hit a little earlier. But in our world, the Replacements won rave reviews, earned the respect of their peers, and influenced everyone from Uncle Tupelo to They Might Be Giants to the Goo Goo Dolls, and oh yeah, released three of the best albums of the ‘80s right in a row. Future alternative-nation mainstay Peter Buck even dropped by to lend “I Will Dare,” one of the many songs that almost got our boys there, a little mandolin. Like the man himself says, “I’ll die within your reach,” and ultimately it’ll never be up to me to say if cult-favorite status is an ample consolation prize for the band who never quite made it big. All I can tell you for certain is they left a hell of a legacy behind.

24: Parquet Courts. I’ll freely admit that these dudes are mostly here on the strength of one album In fact, we got a couple-three bands on this list who I can say the same of. And ok, maybe the purists will tell you I’m cheating, but the beauty of the internet is the purists can start their own Substacks with their own rules. Wide Awake so defined a year or so of my life that I have to put them on this list anyway. And why wouldn’t I? That album is pure magic, y’all. It’s one of those rare albums where everything they do works. The neopunk squalls they’re best known for turn out great, of course. “Total Football” crackles; “Almost Had to Start a Fight/In and Out of Patience” makes brilliant use of its two-part structure, jumping from a crunchy midtempo riff party to a right proper ass-shaker, “Violence” weaves g-funk synths and street-protest shouting so organically it’s a wonder nobody thought of it beforehand. And the curveballs work just as well. Bleary ballads like “Freebird II” and “Mardi Gras Beads” showpiece the group’s melodic know-how and sharp lyrics; “Before the Water Gets too Deep” is a song-long crescendo that boasts serious bass; the title track shows our boys are surprisingly apt at House. But they saved my favorite for last; “Tenderness” combines a monster hook, an incredible bassline, and a devastatingly chipper piano into one of the best damn songs of my entire lifetime. Look, these dudes packed an entire legacy into a single album, and I’m here to give them props. That the rest of their discography offers several gems as well, from the shambling glory of “Instant Disassembly” to the propulsive “He’s Seeing Paths” to the paranoid weirdster “Dust,” doesn’t exactly hurt their case either.

23: Car Seat Headrest. It’s been a weird couple years for Toledo and pals; I dug the Twin Fantasy rerecord, but lo-fi partisans continue to insist that it somehow or other “sold out his original vision, man.” Never mind that, y’know, he only recorded those first few CSH albums all lo-fi like because it was all he could access. Then came Making a Door Less Open, their big bid at mainstream success, and it just left everyone scratching their heads. All of which is a shame, because dude, go back to Teens of Denial. Those needling guitars on “Vincent,” the sheer obliteration of “Destroyed By Hippie Powers,” the throat-shredding screams that cap “Cosmic Hero.” Or why stop there? How to Leave Home reimagines your favorite synth-pop decadence as an hour’s worth of basement pop, and either version of Twin Fantasy you care to mention gives you highs like “Beach Life-in-Death’s” twisty structure and the fizzy shocks of “Cute Thing.” Futile as it feels to preach patience to internet partisans, it’s entirely possible that we’ve counted this band out too early.

22: Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Well, ok, so there is a certain aspect of up-their-own-assery to a band whose average song length is fifteen minutes. And if you really want to nitpick over their discography, neither Luciferian Towers nor Asunder quite reach the same ridiculous highs of their other albums. That said, they’re both pretty damn good, and this band’s ceiling is as lofty as you’ve heard. The band’s ability to sustain atmosphere is unparalleled: take the weird haunting lurch of “Sleep,” or that famous monologue that kicks off “The Dead Flag Blues.” Their songs also feature some of the most overwhelming releases in all of rock music, which, you know, helps. The whole “going super hard” of it and all. Those spiraling riffs that close of “Moya,” the majestic and crushing interplay on “Rockets Fall on Rocket Falls,” and of course the ecstatic strobe-light peak that “Storm” builds up to. Captivating stuff, all of it. And of course I gotta get a shoutout over to Danny Boyle for dropping “The Sad Mafioso” into 28 Days Later’s supermarket sequence. Now there’s a guy who gets it.

21: Nirvana. Too low? Maybe. Cobain was one of the best pure songwriters of his era, equally adept on absolute mashers like “Come As You Are,” ragged pop a la “About a Girl,” and the weird moodies of “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle.” He also had a great guitar tone, equally capable of polished radio rock (“Teen Spirit” was such a big hit for a reason, and it isn’t even the third-best song on Nevermind) and feedbacky yowls, like “All Apologies’” big beautiful collapse. Couple that with a great rhythm section - everyone knows Grohl’s drum hook on “In Bloom,” but Novoselic’s fleet and melodic lines (shades of Mike Mills, and I’m all about that) add buoyancy to tracks like “Lounge Act” and “Lithium.” Yet I can’t help but feeling like, if Cobain had just lived longer, Nirvana’s peak would’ve been remarkable. The shaded arrangements (cello on “Apologies” and “Where Did You Sleep Last Night,” accordion on “Jesus Don’t Want Me for a Sunbeam”) and depth of musical vocabulary (Bowie, Ledbelly, and the Meat Puppets) make Unplugged my favorite album of theirs, and a tantalizing peek at what could’ve been. If we’d been gifted even two more albums of imperial phase Nirvana, they just might’ve slotted into the Top Ten.

Join me next time for 20 - 16.