Gibson ran a series on their site about the
50 Greatest American Rock Bands. Frankly, their selection is somewhat ridiculous. They name Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band as number 1, granting the E Street Band prominence it hasn't seen since 1975. I decided to use another criteria. If a band's wikipedia description included the words "American" "rock" and "band" the group was eligible. The next criteria was album sales. I used Wikipedia for this, but I checked references and the numbers are good.
At the top of the list are the bands with the highest certified sales from the
List of Best Selling Artists:
Topping the list - The Eagles (Even though Hotel California has been called the worst rock song ever written)
2 - Aerosmith
3 - Bon Jovi
4 - Chicago
Next, I went with
best selling alboms worldwide. You could argue that having one of the best selling albums ever in the world doesn't make you a great band, but if you can move that many people to buy your music, you must be doing something right. I didn't repeat anyone from the top 4 above.
The next on the list, in my order of preference:
5 - Linkin Park
6 - Santana
7 - Nirvana
8 - Guns N' Roses
9 - Iron Butterfly
Yeah, that Iron Butterfly thing is a surprise to me, too. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is apparently the 35th highest selling album in the world. It was the first Platinum album awarded when the RIAA began certifying them in 1976. Overall, it has sold as many copies (25 million) as "The Joshua Tree." Go figure.
Finally, to round out the list, I went to the
Best Selling Albums in the US. The biggest selling album by a group not listed above, at 17x Platinum, is:
10 - Boston
So there is the top 10. I'm not going any further because "Cracked Rear View" went 16x Platinum and I'm not putting that band on any "best list" that I write.
And if you still want to argue about album sales making a rock band "best" I refer you to the movie Bad Teacher and
Jason Segel's commentary on Jordan vs. James. That's the only argument I need, Shawn.
