Who is the Greatest American Artist?

The USA is a great country with a rich history of music. However, if you look throughout our music history, the vast majority of the greatest artist are not American. In fact, they're mostly British. So you do you think is the greatest American artist or band? No way in hell am I going definitively give an answer just because music is so subjective, my answer is guaranteed to be wrong and someone else's answer is guaranteed to be right by... everybody else besides me.

So I will pose two questions: 1) Who is your favorite American artist (guaranteed no wrong answers here) and 2) Who do you think is the greatest American artist? I determine "greatest" by national likability (different than the gayer "drinkability") and historical significance. Essentially, which artist, if never existed, would have completely changed American's musical landscape the most?

Here's a list of suggested artists to choose from:
-Bob Dylan
-Chuck Berry
-Michael Jackson
-James Brown
-The Doors
-Elvis Presley
-Nirvana
-Bruce Springstein and the E Street Band
-Stevie Wonder
-Guns N Roses
-The Beach Boys
-Creedence Clearwater Revival
-Johnny Cash

By no means is this list the only artists you can choose from but just some suggestions

7 comments:

Adam Kaplan said...

My favorite American artist, as anyone who knows me can testify is Nirvana

but the greatest artist, I'd say goes to Chuck Berry. Considering, if you pull him from the history of music, no way in hell music from the past 40 years looks even close to how is does

Cubsfan4evr said...

I thought this was a sports blog............

SilverApple said...

40's: Duke Ellington
50's Chuck Berry
60's: Lou Reed

I would argue that each of these guys is at the genesis of 99% of music that came after their prime.

Personal Favs: Thelonius Monk,Frank Sinatra, Sonic Youth, Jeff Mangum

The 'Bright' One said...

It's amazing how little i know outside sports. I have no clue who any of these people are. I've heard some of the names, but dont ask me to name a single song. Except MJ songs, but I couldnt about a month ago

Adam Kaplan said...

Where a sports blog that occassionally makes pop culture references (I think that's on one of our sites, I think one of our podcasting ones..) Hey if Bill Simmons can call himself the Sports guy and just talk about movies + the Red Sox and basketball, we can make make pop culture references too!

And all good choices SilverApple, I don't anyone will ever agree of on the greatest though....

David "MVP" Eckstein said...

2.5 words: Guns N Roses

David "MVP" Eckstein said...

50: Blue Eyes
60: Dylan
70: The Doors
80: Guns N Roses
90: Nirvana
00: Killers