A work colleague of mine a few nights ago made an awful, awful admission. Whilst sitting down after closing time, the conversation turned to music and said colleague's love of the band KISS. You read that correctly, the band KISS, I was outraged, really I was. Of all the bands to openly declare admiration for he chose four make-up wearing buffoons. A band that always cared far too much about image and marketing and merchandise than improving upon their meaningless, vacuous music. The ensuing diatribe left my colleague stunned. I then assured him that I could easily produce a list of 100 guitar based bands that are better than KISS. Here, reader, is that list:
1. The Beatles
2. The Rolling Stones
3. The Kinks
4. The Byrds
5. The Yardbirds
6. Buddy Holly and The Crickets
7. The Jimi Hendrix Experience
8. Weezer
9. The Cure
10. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
11. MGMT
12. Bloc Party
13. Lynyrd Skynyrd
14. Jefferson Airplane
15. Foreigner
16. The Strokes
17. The Smiths
18. Nirvana
19. The Ramones
20. U2
21. Velvet Underground
22. Bob Marley and The Wailers
23. The Stooges
24. Led Zeppelin
25. The Clash
26. Deep Purple
27. The Pixies
28. Aerosmith
29. Metallica
30. Blue Oyster Cult
31. The Police
32. The Verve
33. REM
34. Radiohead
35. Pink Floyd
36. The Doors
37. Television
38. The Who
39. Queen
40. The Animals
41. The Patti Smith Band
42. The Jam
43. Blondie
44. Ash
45. The Zombies
46. The White Stripes
47. New York Dolls
48. Sweet
49. Cream
50. The Coward Brothers
51. Squeeze
52. AC/DC
53. Mott The Hoople
54. Black Sabbath
55. Beach Boys
56. New Order
57. Booker T and The MGs
58. Joy Division
59. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
60. Creedence Clearwater Revival
61. Van Halen
62. Boston
63. Steppenwolf
64. Fleetwood Mac
65. Supertramp
66. T-Rex
67. Rush
68. The Mamas and The Papas
69. Rage Against The Machine
70. Red Hot Chilli Peppers
71. Iron Maiden
72. Sex Pistols
73. The Eagles
74. The Cribs
75. The Arctic Monkeys
76. Foals
77. Kings of Leon
78. Franz Ferdinand
79. Linkin Park
80. The Libertines
81. The La’s
82. Thin Lizzy
83. Biffy Clyro
84. Arcade Fire
85. Muse
86. The Undertones
87. Mumford and Sons
88. Kasabian
89. Vampire Weekend
90. Supergrass
91. Dire Straits
92. Coldplay
93. Blur
94. Oasis
95. Pulp
96. Modest Mouse
97. Simple Minds
98. Journey
99. Cliff Richard and The Shadows
100. Manic Street Preachers
This list is not in any order of preference, just the order in which they occurred to me. I am sure there are many glaring omissions, feel free to let me know the error of my ways.
Joel