Most influential Rock Band of all time.

[Lisnpuppy]

I actually have a Grand Funk Railroad (as the full name goes) vinyl for the Album We're an American Band.

It is yellow and the guys are actually naked on the inside double cover, yet they are strategically hidden behind hay bales. It even came with stickers. ha ha Really they are not so attractive (well maybe in the 1970s they were.) I wonder how many of those old, great bands would have made it today with their looks.

 

But as far as influence, it doesn't matter if they don't draw crowds now, or if they are dead. Everyone gets influenced by those before. Think of the song The House of the Rising Sun. It was a folk song long before The Animals made it famous. Then it has been covered many times, the most recent version with a little change is Five Finger Death Punch which fits quite well in Fallout New Vegas as it references "sin city" being Las Vegas.

 

Personally I think that Led Zeppelin was pretty influential (though of course they got their inspiration from old blues artists.) The Beatles, Stones, Clapton and even one of my favorite bands Chicago (not the 80s Peter Cetera crap, the things from their first few albums with songs like Introduction, South California Purples and (more of a movement than a song since Chicago would have an entire album side be one continous song at times) West Virginia Fantasies... Then there is the Motown Bands like The Temptations. You had the next generation of bands like Styx, Boston and The Dooby Brothers, Heart and Fleetwood Mac. Though people may not realize it those sounds and the blues that carried on through the times even can be seen in some of the Hard Rock and Metal Bands of the 1980s. Add then the Grunge Wave of the 90s still bringing in Blues with their own original sounds with bands like Soundgarden (RIP Chris Cornell, that almost broke my heart.) and Alice in Chains.

 

I can still hear that sound that Led Zeppelin and the Stones carried forward from the old blues musicians (who never got famous or rich and sometimes had their work flat out stolen) in bands today like Shaman's Harvest.

 

I love the blues sound, the minor cords, the modern additions of the swaying bass beats. I love those grinding, dirty sounds from amps that are ready to give up the ghost. I love the singers that can bring that soul-searing sound out, making you feel like your heart is being ripped right our of your chest.

 

I'm not sure you can pick one or two bands as the "most influential" There were groups over times, that carried on a sound but added their own to it. I love music. I listen to a great variety of things. However I really hate these "pop bands" that barely write their songs, some can not play an instrument. Their singing is fixed in the studio so when they perform it live it sounds terrible. I would rather go hear some garage band of hopeful budding rockers that write their own stuff and play with energy and passion, if perhaps not perfection.

[TheMastersSon]

Quantity and quality of influence are two different things, and in that first category I don't think anyone can compare to the Beatles. They just happened to be in the right place at the right time, still Sgt. Pepper's turned the entire recording industry on its ear and influenced countless millions of musicians, like no other album ever did or ever has.

 

The quality question is impossible to answer objectively, but personally The Who influenced me more than any other rock band.

[Fkemman11]

Here's some blues for ya! Hendrix. The man is a legend. He could play his guitar with his teeth, behind his head, others I can't remember.

[Moksha8088]

The Beatles.