@@GoneButNotGone Happy Belated Thanksgiving to you. So glad I could turn you on to that song. I’m going to check out the two you recommended. Yeah, the Bennet years were the best.

@ A final addendum to my addendum regarding Jay. I’m sure as a Wilco/Jay fan you’ve seen it, but if you haven’t, the feature documentary, “Where Are You, Jay Bennett?” - a fine and welcome tribute to his life and work. Very moving, tbh. There are free full versions on KZbin. It was in the film’s closing credits where I heard Jay’s song, I Don’t Have the Time, and searched for it in his solo catalogue after, but couldn’t find it. I wonder if the filmmakers pulled it from his unpublished archive. It does sound like a lofi home recording. I’m sure there lots of great stuff we will never hear.

@@roughfishmusic Thanks Joe. I love the album and actually wish I had waited another day or two to record this, because it opened up for me even more later.

@@aminahmed2220 Thank you! Hope you’re on the mend.

@@Mfidelity Thanks. Really cool to think of BT that way.

@@Thedarkstuff Swingin’ Party too. Happy Belated Thanksgiving!

Thanks! And thanks for sharing that song that’s so special to you. I’m looking forward to checking it out.

Glad you see what’s so special about that one as well. Happy Thanksgiving!

'A Shot In The Arm' - Love and I mean love that song. The live version is incredible too. Like many of Wilco's songs I was repeatedly playing that for years.

@@willfitzpatrick1107 Excellent songs! A Shot In The Arm is so good. I feel like I should know that John Prine song, but will play it just to make sure. I may turn your list into a playlist.

Thanks! Will check it out.

Thanks. Happy Thanksgiving!

When I bought Bloodletting by Concrete Blood ,which is a stellar album start to finish, Tomorrow Wendy blew me over with imagery of pain and hopelessness or maybe pathos is the word. Also, musicially, the chord progression with piano and the bass playing by Gail Ann Dorsey frames the tragedy of Wendy and her intended suicide.

@@jasonmoad56 I listened to it last night after reading your comment. I was surprised that Johnette was dueting on it with him. I’m partial to CB’s version due to familiarity and the power of her voice. But you make me want to explore Andy’s solo records now.

Thanks Fitz. It’s interesting to think of what connects them all. I started to see the thread as I was doing it. The lyrics, the storytelling, but mostly the emotional heart of the songs. That feeling that it’s ok to be who you are. And seeing beauty in the small things. That does align to a set of values I share. Thanks so much for your excellent video and for inspiring me to do mine.

@ For mine the thread that seemed to reveal itself was “home” or station in life; leaving a place, thinking about a time and place in the past, and dissatisfaction with where one is at in their life.

@ Great theme I often find in music Ias well. If you haven’t heard John Moreland’s song “Hang Me In The Tulsa County Stars” you should check it out. Totally aligns to that theme in a powerful way.

Aron, I love your list and am going to make a playlist out of it. I could have included many of those. Isadora Duncan almost made my list, but I couldn’t decide between that one and Speed Racer. Decided to keep the list to the first 13 I thought of. Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving!

@lostmixtapes Yeah, I think you and I run along similar music tracks. I stopped at 18 specifically because that was an ideal length for a playlist, and I listed the songs in the order I put them on my playlist. If I were to push it to 20, I would pick a Neil Young song, and maybe Justin Townes Earle’s ‘Harlem River Blues’. Sad lyrics for that one, but it’s such an ear worm of a song.

@@JohnHirstUK Troy is a hell of a song. I just went with what popped into my head.

@@fizzlebomber674 That’s embarrassing. I think I did. I better stick with CCR.

The Doors would have been on there if I extended it to 25 or maybe 30. I used to love them back in high school, but I've seldom listened to them since. I thought about Low and Pavement too. I never got into Uncle Tupelo as deeply as some have. I like them quite a bit. I just like what came after a lot more. Maybe we should do follow up videos of honorable mentions.

@@amitytracks So great to hear from you! I’ve thought about reaching out on several different occasions hoping that you were doing ok. Miss your channel and seeing you around. You did have great editing, but your content is what really matters. I keep mine really simple and use iMovie. Would definitely recommend it if you don’t want to get too in the weeds with it all. I like Uncle Tupelo, but not as much as Wilco. The Cars probably should have been in there. I may do an extra video and mention a few I missed. Thanks so much for the message.

Hey, thanks Brian. I love the Jayhawks as well. Just too many great bands. I should do a Minneapolis Music countdown sometime. They'd be pretty high on that list. Or on any Americana list.

Nirvana really only had two good albums, but their influence on pop culture was massive.

@@lostmixtapes golden smog weird tales a must

Leave Todd alone, Stunty. Pick on me instead! 😉😂 (Also… I told you so. 🇺🇸😞)

@@TheDigitalGramophone You did... And I thought a lot about that... I'll tell you something privately, but that really affected the whole Den Bosch Trip

Thanks for stopping by. I wanted to do this list before the election. Just ran out of time. Watch my video before this one and you'll see what I think of this new regime. 🤮

bless you.

That surprises me. Give Alien Lanes a shot sometime. Ridiculously catchy songs, one after another, some just fragments, bleeding into each other like a collage.

Thanks. Hard to argue with that top 3.

Long live the banjo.

@@vinylrichie007 amen brother!

@@vinylrichie007😂

Thanks. Things would get a lot more diverse if we included individual artists or "______ and the _________" type bands. But my focus is definitely on rock and the 60s on.

@@lostmixtapes my top 10 included The Benny Goodman Orchestra, New Grass Revival and The Memphis Jug Band.

The Cars probably should have been on my list. Television was a contender. So was Talking Heads.

Thanks Jesse!

Except for Talking Heads

And B52s

And The Cars

Always great to see some GBV love.

I thought I should have fact checked that. Thanks

That's a great list. I could have easily included Cheap Trick, The Cars, Aerosmith, and Metallica. Even Guns N' Roses if I really think about it. Nice to see some Husker and Dinosaur love too.

One glaring omission -Talking Heads

Thanks. Trying to keep it positive and music helps. I got into Whiskeytown/Ryan Adams for a while. As a live performer he used to really annoy me with the way he'd make fun of his audience and insult his own material. Some real issues going on with the guy. For me, so much of his stuff seemed like artifice. And I've seen him insult people for liking it. He's talented. No doubt about that. And the last show I saw of his was quite good too...about 10 years ago at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in SF. I just have a hard time seeing him as genuine or separating the art from the artist with him for some reason. Maybe because I felt personally insulted at a show of his in 2002 when he turned on the audience. 1997-ish Whiskeytown show was fun.

It really is. I wish it didn't remain so relevant.

GAH! I forgot Talking Heads

Fleetwood Mac was entirely British for years.

@@philweston4312alright I swap them out for Talking Heads

Great list. LOVE seeing Big Thief on there. They should have made mine. I just tend to think of bands that are older and have been around longer.

It doesn’t tell you a lot about the state of music, it tells you a lot about the people who make these lists. There are many things that incentivize people to pick older bands. For one, the older the band, the longer you will have and are able to maintain a relationship with them. Half of these bands (at least) are at one or more generations older than him and therefore would have been around or even on the radio in some form when he was a kid (it’s a fact that unless you stay an active and engaged listener as you get older, that your taste in music at its core solidifies at a young age for the average person). And beyond nostalgia, artists who’ve been around for decades are often safer picks than newer bands because we already know their entire arc, have seen how the press etc has either doted on them or eventually come to love them (some bands on here were pretty beloved from the get go while bands like the stooges were largely misunderstood until many years later but have still been beloved for many decades now). They’re easy, safe picks that pose little risk of judgement from the public. last but not least, older bands whose names are largely recognizable atp are going to bring more engagement to a channel like this (even people Like Fantano who has a huge audience took a long time to review truly lesser known and newer acts and his whole shtick has been to review new music. Hard to bring engagement without a band with a history and prior listener recognition). And the list goes on and on. There is plenty of good music post 2000 and a fair amount of music which I’m sure will be considered great with time post 2000, post 2010, and even post 2020 imho. It sounds like you already have your mind made up and are engaging with videos which reflect that opinion (which is how the YT Algorithm works).

@ A well reasoned opinion, agree with much of it. I was thinking about this a bit more. I don’t think great bands need time to be deemed the greatest. I grew up in the 70s and was spoiled by great band after band and at the time I knew they were the greatest compared to nostalgia picks from the 50s-60s. I also recall the same feeling in the 1990s. I remember hearing Wilco’s first couple albums and declaring them the greatest American band I’ve ever heard in the past 20 years. I have not had that feeling post-2000. And I do consume music still. I agree that there are great band out there now, but they are drowning in a new music business landscape of streaming services and self-publishing. The number of new indie tracks being uploaded everyday to streaming services is thousands upon thousands. In this vast sea of skim milk, it’s very hard for the cream to rise to the top and be noticed.

@@GoneButNotGone I can agree with at least the tail end of this. You’re right, part of it is definitely the systems at play. Spotify and streaming in general does not highlight good new music as well as it could and payola and class shit is still very much at play, radio has been drowning in oldies and top 40 garbage for forever, college radio has thinned out more and more. And also, the elephant in the room: the sheer amount of music able to be released is staggering in comparison to almost any other time in history while simultaneously people’s attention spans seem to be growing shorter and shorter. Most people aren’t willing to look very long or very hard to find new music at the same time that it’s gotten harder and harder to do so. Even music journalism has a hard time keeping up with it (and will often champion bands who either have a good narrative or who have been able to attain an audience, the results of which is not necessarily fostering all the artists who would have been given the chances that great acts of previous decades had to be heard. I’ll take your word that you were able to suss out some if not many great bands before they were collectively anointed but the pool you were listening from pre internet was also infinitely smaller and good artists who perhaps need to grow into being great were more often given the chance to do so. Now, to get any attention you have to sell a certain amount of records (a larger number than any previous decade by the way) out of the gate to maintain or else you start out and remain somewhere in the middle, a middle which was once a bit easier to see but has become so vast that it nearly amounts to obscurity in comparison to the world pre internet.

@@RBGRBGRBGRBG Appreciate your insights. The staggering volume of releases you mention is one of the downsides of democratization of music production/distribution. Anyone and their dog can find a free DAW, make a record and release it on most streaming services via DistroKid for a nominal fee. There are no quality control guardrails anymore. In the old days, you had to be really good to get signed by a record company. And with that contract usually came patience from the company, A&R, marketing and tour support, etc… there was a lot of exploitation, to be sure, many artists got robbed blind of publishing rights, screwed on contracts. But many didn’t. It was much more of a meritocracy than today’s streaming/distribution hellscape, which is only going to get more hellish as A.I. enters the music-making business. Some of the imposter AI music I’m seeing pop into my Shorts feed these days scares the hell out of me cuz I see exactly where it’s going. But I digress. Thank you for the discussion.

Thanks. Good discussion. I think newer bands have to assimilate a bit before you call them the greatest. Perspective matters. Are you caught up in a trend and will this new band grow old quickly? Or will they continue to enrich your life for years, even decades. As far as newer bands that could be on a list like this: Wussy and Big Thief. Exceptional American bands from the 2000s and 2010s. I also think that as you get older new bands don't often break ground for you. It doesn't sound fresh. You've heard it before. It doesn't hit on the same level. It can often sound like watered down versions of what came before. And I'd argue that it often is. But if you were younger and heard that newer band first it could be life-changing. I'm not 20. I'm not going to pretend to like what a 20 year old likes. So many musical trends and production techniques of the last 10+ years do nothing for me. But I remain hopeful that I'll discover a new band tomorrow that ten years from now could be on a list like this. I think it mostly has to do with what's on your radar at a given moment and what you're listening to and what inspired you to become such a music junkie in the first place, and there's a bit of what the culture at large would think too. But I"m not going to argue that some group from the 2020s is a great American band just to include the decade. Because then you're PItchfork or Rolling Stone constantly, and obnoxiously, updating their lists in an attempt to remain relevant and accepted by everyone. No thanks. I had Big Star in there by the way. Higher up than CCR.

Love that list. Thought about including Neutral Milk Hotel.

You can add the mighty Okkervil River, Pixies, Sugar to that list..........over and out!@@lostmixtapes

X almost made mine. Metallica would if I was doing a much more objective list. But I very seldom listen to them anymore.

I probably should have included Guns N’ Roses.

Thanks! I always appreciate your thoughts. I could definitely respect both of those bands being on a list. I almost didn’t do this one because I don’t like making such definitive statements/lists about things that are this broad. It is fun to see what people come up with.