RIYL has wrapped up the 64 seed tournament to crown the best American band as voted on by you, the reader. 16 bands from each region, North, South, East, and West. The final four, by region, were Outkast out of the South, Velvet Underground representing the East, Nirvana in the West and our winners, Prince & The Revolution from the North.

Like any good tournament, it’s not an argument ender, it’s an argument starter and folks here’s an argument for you: Why is Prince and The Revolution on this list of bands? Prince is a singular solo force and identity, a musical dictator ruling over employees. They’re not a band band, they’re one guy’s ideas expressed through the title of a band.

This is not an uncommon complaint, Brandon Wetherbee, the editor of this website told me he was not happy with the result.

If this is your stance, I understand. Even when coming up with this concept, I initially pitched that we don’t include primarily solo artists that have credited backup bands like Prince, Tom Petty or Bruce Springsteen. It’s messy, now you have to break it down album by album, consider the live show, band chemistry, compare eras, etc.

But as the tournament went on, I started to understand the value of their inclusion, and I want to make the case as to why. First, why is this different from bands like Creedence Clearwater Revival or Smashing Pumpkins, where one person writes the vast majority of the music and then asks his people to record it with him? Sorry it took John Fogerty the better part of a decade to realize people weren’t buying tickets to see Stu Cook and finally go solo. Prince just happened to know from the time he was a teenager that he was special.

And what could be more American than the individualism of Prince? Do you want Prince to be nameless in a band with other people? A terrible idea. 

And even though Prince is the marquee name and he largely handled himself like an old school taskmaster bandleader in the mold of James Brown, he still had a fantastic band and worked like a band. The Revolution were only officially credited for three records, Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day and Parade. The core band of Wendy Melvoin, Lisa Coleman, Brownmark, Doctor Fink, and Bobby Z. also played on 1999 but for some reason the “and the Revolution” part was written backwards on the album cover and I don’t think they get credit on Billboard charts? Most of the Revolution also played on 1981’s Controversy, and Dr. Fink and Lisa Coleman are on Dirty Mind but there was not even a backwards name on the cover.

Honestly not sure how that stuff works, but they played on Prince records semi-officially from 1982 to 1986, I’d say inarguably his definitive era. He was absolutely great before and after, but look at the list of hits The Revolution played on: “Kiss,” “Purple Rain,” “1999,” “Little Red Corvette,” “Raspberry Beret,” “Delirious,” “Little Nikki,” “Automatic,” “I Would Die 4 U,” “Pop Life,” “Let’s Go Crazy,” “When Doves Cry?” Get the fuck outta here. This is as bulletproof of a run of hits as any band from this tournament.

While Prince always evolved throughout his career, the Revolution stretch had their distinct band sound: the gated reverb drums, funky analog synths that leaned more into rock all played by expert funk and soul musicians that showed off but in a digestible pop structure. It was of its time in a way that you can’t manufacture. Or maybe you can? Maybe Prince and The Revolution created the 80s? They were so good, it’s entirely possible they bent the will of every human on earth to accept their way of doing things.

The Revolution was a band. They did band stuff like tour and fight and break up. It can’t be easy working with/for Prince and it wasn’t. With any band egos get in the way, musicians want to try new things, bandleaders want to retain a power dynamic. The band broke up in ‘87 before Prince recorded Sign O’ The Times and the Revolution era was over.

But that was it, that stretch of a few years in the 80s created the best American band ever. A stretch comparable in length to other “greatest band” contenders like Creedence, Nirvana, or The Beatles. It’s not about how long you’re around, it’s about what you do with the time and Prince and The Revolution used their time to define their era and beyond. Sure it was mostly Prince’s creative force, but we have enough of a sample size of his work before and after with different bands this to know that he might not have reached that extra level of chemistry and magic that only comes when you have a band like The Revolution.

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