Best American Band Tournament
My fellow Americans, since it’s July, the USA’s birth month, we’re running our inaugural Best American Band Tournament.
We divided the country in four quadrants like they’re football divisions (the most American sport), chose 16 bands from those regions and are having you the people vote on the bands to advance. Since art is not sports we ranked bands in alphabetical order by region.
Our loose criteria to narrow down our choices:
- No solo artists
- The majority of the band must be from the US (Sorry Fleetwood Mac, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, etc.)
- No [name] & [name] duo acts (Brooks & Dunn, Hall & Oates, Ike & Tina Turner, etc. Steely Dan gets in on a technicality, the rules are not perfect)
- Can include when the band is named after a person (Van Halen)
- Can include person’s name as part of a band (Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, etc.)
There are dozens more we wish we could have included but the tournament can’t run forever. Some of our favorite omissions (A Tribe Called Quest, Heart, The Impressions, The Ronettes, Sonic Youth, etc.), may be included in future tournaments depending on how tight any of these matchups shake out.
What makes a band the greatest American band? Album sales? Cultural influence? Cool logo? Ubiquity on radio? Earworms? The best soundtrack for consuming hot dogs and beer? I don’t know, and I vote! Make up your own criteria and go with your gut.
We’ll be running polls on Twitter and Instagram over the next month. Vote early and vote often, or until you hit your Tweet limit. And god bless the USA.
EAST
NORTH
SOUTH
WEST
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