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Article Is the Greatest American Band: Grand Funk Railroad?

While surfing the web one night, I came across one of those lists that are so popular among the Digg crowd. In this case, it was a list of the greatest rock bands of all time. I am pretty sure that you don't even have to see the list to pretty much know who is on it. For some reason, it struck me how few American bands were on the list. I did a search on "greatest rock bands" and came across several more lists, all of which share this peculiar fact of containing few, if not no American bands.

I guess it must be the 600 plus years of musical history that have the English up on Americans in this category. Somehow some kind of left turn happened after the blues and early rock and roll. One could hardly argue in favor of any American band coming ahead of The Beatles, Stones, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, to name a few of the acts that routinely top the lists. Usually in a list of ten, maybe two or three American bands might appear. I did peruse a few lists of "greatest American bands" and was mostly disappointed in their construction. Looking at one, I just thought, "Is this really the greatest ten American bands?"

Concurrently, I have had occasion to listen to a band that was quite popular in my youth. After listening, thinking and debating in my own head, I have to nominate Grand Funk Railroad as the greatest American band. Of course, the fact that they appear on few, if any, of the greatest band lists that I have seen on the Internet only reinforces my view.

Although, I don't have any set criteria that I use to make the decision, I compared them with an extensive list of American band culled from the "greatest" lists. Alhtough, there were some of these acts that excelled GFR in some areas, I felt that in the final analyis all others fell short.

One thing going for Grand Funk is just simply the name of the band. What an unexpected treat the name of the band is to say. Repeat after me: Grand Funk Railroad. It's just fun. Another factor is the Sixties coolness that oozing from the playing and singing on their albums. Many bands in the Seventies tried to package up the peace and loviness of the previous decade into a salable product, but few managed it with the élan of GFR. In the area of material success, Grand Funk had a great run, that was also longer than many of their contemporaries. Grand Funk's first ten albums went Gold, Platinum or 2x Platinum.

They had some great songs, both originals and covers. "Time Machine", "Inside Looking Out", "Heartbreaker", "Mean Mistreater", "Footstompin' Music", "Shinin' On, "Loco-motion", "Some Kind of Wonderful", "We're an American Band", "Bad Time", and, of course, "I'm Your Captain/Closer to Home."

Mostly consisting of Mark Farner on guitar and vocals, Don Brewer on drums and vocals, Mel Schacher on bass, along with Craig Frost on keyobards for many years, the band enjoyed a great deal of success, despite savage critical reviews. And that is another factor in Grand Funk "greatness", the fact that the rock critics hate them. We all reach a point when we realize that most media criticism, and especially rock criticism, is ultimate rampart narcissism in which the so-called review is much more about the reviewer than the reviewed. Almost all rock criticism is pure drek and I am counting you Robert Christgau, Griel Marcus and, yes, even Lester Bangs.

Put them in your iPod and give a listen. I am pretty sure you will agree (eventually).


Grand Funk Railroad - Greatest Hits
Discarded Candidates:

Aerosmith
Allman Brothers Band
Beach Boys
Bon Jovi
Bruce Springsteen & E Street Band
Buddy Holly & The Crickets
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Crosby, Stills, & Nash
Dave Matthews Band
Eagles
Fleetwood Mac
Foo Fighters
Grateful Dead
Green Day
Guns N' Roses
Heart
Journey
Kiss
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Metallica
Nirvana
Pearl Jam
Queenryche
Rage Against The Machine
Ramones
Red Hot Chili Peppers
REM
Sly and the Family Stone
Sonic Youth
Soundgarden
Steely Dan
The Beach Boys
The Byrds
The Doors
The Mothers of Inventions
The Stooges
Tom Petty & Heartbreakers
Van Halen
Velvet Underground
Weezer

Posted by: Joseph Burke - August 26, 2009, 8:31 pm - Article
Keywords: music, rock

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