The Next R10

Scott Hardie | September 4, 2010
As if you didn't have enough other ballots to vote on these days... We've been debating the promotion of certain R9s around here for a while, and the name U2 keeps coming up again and again. Let's settle this once and for all: Is U2 really more deserving than all other R9 bands to join the greatest rank in Rock Block? Starting tomorrow, I'll accept votes daily in a bracketed ballot to determine the next R10. Voting will conclude with the final two nominees on October 5, and the winner of that vote will get a promotion. Whether you're a U2 lover or hater, this is your chance to make it count. Please vote daily. If you'd like, subscribe to "promotion poll" in Dashboard to get a reminder each day.

Want to persuade people to your opinion? Please discuss below.

Scott Hardie | September 4, 2010
I sorted the R9s into brackets in random order. This is going to be a little anticlimactic if U2 is eliminated on the third day. This isn't just about U2 of course, but they're the name that we've discussed more than any other.

Samir Mehta | September 4, 2010
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Aaron Shurtleff | September 7, 2010
The U2 haters are out in force!! Y'all better vote if you're gonna! LOL!!!

Scott Hardie | September 11, 2010
I have long planned to add Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday to the game. Like Woody Guthrie, Django Reinhardt, and the sillier choice of Jelly Roll Morton, they're influential "pre-rock" figures that make interesting rare additions to the game. (Guthrie had a major resurgence in the 1960s when Dylan and others celebrated him, so he's got a legitimate claim to being rock anyway, in my opinion.)

I've always considered Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd to be the two greatest bands of the 1970s. Like Elvis and the Beatles, I find it impossible to rank one over the other. Other players didn't have that much difficulty, voting Zep ahead much earlier. I love Zep and I have never had much tolerance for Floyd (Waters's nasally voice just wears me down, like Bob Dylan), but if Zep deserves R10 status, I can see a case for Floyd too.

I've talked enough about Ray Charles, who remains the obvious choice for promotion to me, and I expect to see him eliminated in the first round. James Brown, The Velvet Underground, and Sly & the Family Stone are also huge, huge influences on rock & roll who are worth of promotion, but won't get far in this poll.

We haven't brought R8s up for discussion yet, but in my mind, Little Richard is by far the most deserving R8 who should be in this poll, and Marvin Gaye and BB King are worthy of promotion too. They're some of the biggest, most iconic, and vastly influential figures in rock, but they're being passed over by the likes of Fleetwood Mac. Boo.

Steve West | September 11, 2010
Yeah, I'm sorry to see Buddy Holly and Ray Charles pitted against each other so early as they are my personal favorites. Aretha Franklin gets just a little too much R-E-S-P-E-C-T if you ask me. R9 I can't argue too much about, though. I agree completely about Floyd, good and bad. Roy Orbison and The Doors are a little underappreciated, I think. I am sadly clueless as to how Tina Turner, Madonna, and Bob Marley have gotten this far. As for R8's, go Little Richard, Black Sabbath, Crosby Stills & Nash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5 and Eagles!

Samir Mehta | September 12, 2010
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Scott Hardie | September 12, 2010
Yes. Floyd is definitely deserving of at least R9 and possibly deserving of R10 whether I like their music or not. I don't much care for Bob Dylan either, but I can definitely respect his place at the very top. There are others that I respect even though I've never gotten into their recordings, like Sam Cooke, James Brown, and the Everly Brothers. On the other hand, U2 is very polarizing, and they make it hard to respect them if you don't like them, but personally I'm trying to get past that.

Erik Bates | September 21, 2010
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Amy Austin | September 22, 2010
Lol... excellent idea and submission, Erik. Of course, let's not forget Exhibits B:


and C:

Amy Austin | September 22, 2010
Unbelieveable. Oblivious of the time, I made the previous post when it was already half an hour too late to cast my forgotten vote... which would have resulted in a tie, broken by Scott's vote for...???

Grrr. Fuck.

Amy Austin | September 22, 2010
Oh, well. At least it won't result in my dreaded dilemma of having Bowie pitted against anyone else I'd like to see up there.

Matthew Preston | September 22, 2010
Any predictions on how the brackets will complete? I'm figuring Grateful Dead vs. The Doors for the top half, although Aretha Franklin could sneak through. I also guess Ray Charles vs. Pink Floyd for the bottom half, but I can see Bruce Springsteen or Johnny Cash pushing through as well. I'll make a final prediction that The Doors defeat Pink Floyd for the number 10 spot... but that of course is based on personal preference. :-)

Scott, the next time we promote an R10, you should have a bracket prediction contest. Similar to a march madness basketball pool where we send in our predictions on how the competition goes.

Steve Dunn | September 22, 2010
James Brown over Aretha Franklin in the final.

Allman Brothers over U2 is a travesty, but I understand how this contest works. Velvet Underground had a much better claim. I'm not even sure Allmans should be R9.

Samir Mehta | September 23, 2010
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Steve Dunn | September 23, 2010
Agree to disagree on the musical issues (matters of taste to some extent, for sure) but just so the record is clear, my advocacy of U2 has almost nothing to do with lyrics or politics. I barely ever listen to lyrics at all, and political songs mostly just annoy me.

One other point of clarification: I love, and I mean LOVE, the Allman Brothers Band.

Amy Austin | September 23, 2010
What Steve said... every word.

Samir Mehta | September 23, 2010
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Steve Dunn | September 23, 2010
I think from a pure aesthetic standpoint the conversation goes nowhere. Everybody likes different stuff.

We've covered this ground already, but I'll try to summarize the pro-U2 position in such a way that personal taste is not implicated.

Longevity - U2 has had the same lineup since 1976. Allman brothers were formed in 1969. Duane Allman died in 1971 and since then they've had 12 different lineups.

Sustained relevance - This is the biggest factor for me. At a U2 concert you'll see thousands of kids wanting to hear "Vertigo." At an Allman Brothers concert you'll see thousands of geezers (including me, mind you) wanting to hear "Whipping Post."

Popularity/Sales - not even close.

Influence - Used to be, every popular rock song had a lead guitar solo. Now they don't. A minor detail, perhaps, but just one of many ways in which rock music has gone U2's way. Lots of today's very popular bands sound, to me, almost exactly like U2. The Allman sound is still around, too (Samir, have you heard Robert Randolph?) but not in mainstream pop/rock.

Innovation - Every other band these days sounds a bit like U2, but who did U2 sound like? What preceded The Unforgettable Fire? I agree Duane Allman was a great guitar player, but The Edge also belongs in the pantheon. (Side note: great documentary "It Might Get Loud" puts The Edge, Jimmy Page, and Jack White in a room together to discuss and play guitar - it's immediately clear that each of them is completely incapable of playing what the either of the other guys plays). Edge is a master of effects and technology, but I think his greatest contribution was in layering tracks to create a mood, "Where The Streets Have No Name" being a great example.

All right, all right, no more extolling the virtues of U2 on this board! I feel like it's all I ever talk about. What I really need to do is pop in some Joshua Tree or Unforgettable Fire so I can remember why I became such a zealot.

Amy Austin | September 23, 2010
Lol... preachin' to the choir, Steve -- a great supporting argument, though... truly.

Ryan Dunn | September 25, 2010
The Doors over Elton John is an upset. I'm sorry, am I the only person who thinks The Doors are totally overrated?

Erik Bates | September 25, 2010
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Amy Austin | September 25, 2010
No. Don't get me wrong... I really like them, but yeah... I don't really think of them as R10 material, either. Not before a lot of others, anyway (*coughcoughU2orDavidBowieoranybodyelseherecough*). Easy to wonder what would be different if the Lizard King didn't make a premature exit.

Steve Dunn | September 25, 2010
Doors are a stretch for R9.

Steve Dunn | September 30, 2010
I didn't expect the Grateful Dead to make it this far, but thinking about it now, they have as legitimate a claim as anyone left. They spawned the psychedelic jam band genre and it now encompasses artists as diverse as... well I guess the performers at the Bonnaroo festival are a good snapshot.

Ryan Dunn | September 30, 2010
The Doors had a few good tunes and a good looking drunken lead singer. Sure, they were a deep/heavy band at a time where most music was all peace and lovey dubby, but so were The Stones, and Stones/Doors ain't even close! "Ain't the same f***ng ball park. It ain't the same league. It ain't even the same f***ng sport." The Doors didn't innovate anything, they weren't the best at their respective crafts, and towards the end they started doing lounge tunes! Amy, I think Morrison's premature exit IS the reason he's so highly respected now...had he lived on he'd have turned into an overweight has been playing the second stage at The Golden Nugget.

Scott Hardie | October 1, 2010
I said my piece about the Doors last September 12 and I stand by it. Morrison drove the Doors to darker places than the Stones would venture, at the cost of his life. They struck a nerve in Western culture that we didn't know we had and that needed to be struck. They mattered.

Longevity has been argued as a cause for promotion, and brevity a cause for holding back a band. I can see the inherent value in sustained artistic accomplishment over many years, but isn't it kind of arbitrary to decide that a band didn't matter just because their career was short, when they manifestly did matter? Jimi Hendrix, Sam Cooke, Velvet Underground, and Nirvana all lasted a half-decade in the spotlight. Buddy Holly's career was a mere eighteen months. Yet they all remain hugely influential, decades after they left the stage. Do they not matter? Hell, the Beatles were around for less than a decade, and Elvis only had about five important years. If longevity mattered that much, the voting wouldn't be necessary, because I could just rank performers by how many years they were active, and groups like the Platters would be R10s.

Steve Dunn | October 1, 2010
Haha, the voting isn't necessary at all.

Scott Hardie | October 1, 2010
Good point. :-)

Steve Dunn | October 1, 2010
Anvil for R10!

Scott Hardie | October 4, 2010
The typo on today's ballot is fixed. Please re-vote. Thanks for the private messages.

Samir Mehta | October 4, 2010
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Lori Lancaster | October 4, 2010
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Scott Hardie | October 5, 2010
They're all from other sources. The only one I wrote was Userrank 10.

Ryan Dunn | October 6, 2010
Well, hell.

I can't complain about Floyd.

Innovative, deep, talented...skillz. They deserve R10.

Now don't get me started on The Doors. Next up...U2!!!!!!

Scott Hardie | October 6, 2010
Pink Floyd it is, after a narrow 8-7 vote over Grateful Dead. Thanks for voting, everybody!

Tony Peters | October 6, 2010
I wanted the Dead but I can't complain about Floyd at least it wasn't U2

Scott Hardie | October 6, 2010
I struggled with a few choices along the way, but none as much as I did with Dead vs Floyd, two very deserving bands. Either would be a great R10.

Erik Bates | October 6, 2010
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