Revisiting The American Band Championship Belt, Part 1

Join Me As I Argue With Myself, 10 Years Later

One of the things I enjoy most about writing books is that they stick around. Not forever, of course, because nothing lasts forever. (Though Shakespeare and the writers of the Gospels are on a great run.) But books last a little bit longer than columns that are published in newspapers or on the internet. I have written millions upon millions of words in my career, going back 30 years to when I was a teenage columnist for my hometown paper. The vast majority of those words have been forgotten or — this has become alarmingly common! — they simply no longer exist. Those years I spent writing and editing the Milwaukee edition of The A.V. Club? Vanished! Erased! Zapped from the online dustbin!

However, there are a handful of columns that have endured. And thanks to a surprisingly benevolent corporation that opted to keep a long-shuttered website’s archives online, that work has been rediscovered by younger generations.

I refer to Grantland, the late great site that lasted from 2011 to 2015 and the place where I was employed as a staff writer for most of that time. (I came in during the summer of 2012 and lasted until the bitter end in the fall of ’15.) I’m proud to be associated with Grantland, and I’m even sort of glad that it had a relatively short life. It’s nice being part of a band that put out four great records and then broke up. It feels romantic in a way that working in media rarely is.

A Grantland column I am often asked about is “The American Band Championship Belt,” which was published almost exactly 10 years ago in August 2014. The idea was to determine the best American band for every year going back to 1964, applying the Bill Simmons coinage of a revolving “championship belt.” Readers have come at me praising this column, debating this column, and wondering who would take the belt in the years since.

I thought it would be fun to revisit the column over the next two weeks. In Part Two, I will determine who holds the belt in the years since 2014. But for now, I want to go through the column and pick out the parts that I no longer agree with.

Before that, however, let’s go over the criteria.

This is crucial. At some point, I would like to write something about the great “and the” bands history. But that’s a different conversation.

One of my contemporary quibbles is related to this. Stay tuned.

Still think this is valid, though one of my contemporary quibbles is related to this.

The handling of The Replacements remains a travesty. But I will not be addressing it any further.

Okay, let’s get to the quibbles. I tried to not be overly nitpicky about this. On my initial pass through the column, I found myself fretting about whether The Byrds should have ranked higher in the 1967-68 era vs. 1965-66. And then I realized I was boring the hell out of myself.

So, here are my significant quibbles with “The American Band Championship Belt,” 10 years later.

I thought this was interesting because the so-called revisionism regarding Steely Dan tends to be traced back to the late 2010s, when social media accounts like Good Steely Dan Takes ushered Donald Fagen and Walter Becker into their meme era. But it was clearly happening years before that. I don’t know if the Kanye sample was the true turning point or not, but I don’t remember this inclusion being particularly controversial at the time.

What has shifted is the mirco-era of Steely that is most valued. When I first became a Steely Dan fan in my 20s back in the aughts, the more rock-oriented early ’70s albums were held in the highest esteem. In 2024, the immaculately smooth late ’70s LPs are the most fetishized. So, it makes sense that in the time period between those two poles I was stumping for Steely Dan’s mid-’70s records.

If I were writing this column now, I would probably put The Royal Scam with Aja and Gaucho and make a case for Steely holding the belt for 1976 to ’80.

The only problem is that the late ’70s is hyper-competitive! As much as I adore Aja, my favorite album of 1977 has to be Rumours. And yet Fleetwood Mac does not come up once in this column, likely because (per criterion No. 2) I counted them more as a British band than an American one. And I might have been correct to do that. They were 60 percent English, after all. But Lindsey and Stevie’s 40 percent arguably had greater weight, given their songwriting and production supremacy.

If I were writing this column now, I would probably give the belt to Fleetwood Mac.

I think I was right (per criterion No. 3) to avoid repeats, just from a readability standpoint. But R.E.M. was in the conversation for best American band up through the mid-’90s, and I think they actually held it for most of the ’80s.

If I were writing this column now, I would probably give R.E.M. the belt at least through 1986.

Skipping over the ’90s section of the column, which I actually feel pretty good about in retrospect. (Wish I had repped for Silver Jews, but alas.) There isn’t a band that has aged worse for me in the past 10 years than LCD Soundsystem. Their post-reunion period has just made James Murphy irredeemably lame in my eyes. Though I don’t begrudge anyone from rocking out at the next “AmEx Only” residency at Terminal 5.

I don’t know why I didn’t just give the belt to The National, my favorite band of this era. (I assume it was related to criterion No. 4.) Also: It’s funny to realize that I was already complaining about Matt Berninger not screaming enough 10 years ago.

If I were writing this column now, I would definitely give the belt to The National.

I remember taking some shit for giving the belt to Deerhunter, a band most Grantland readers had never heard of. The more obvious choice was Vampire Weekend, possibly the most adored indie band by non-hardcore indie people of that time. In 2014, I loved Deerhunter and liked Vampire Weekend. I still love Deerhunter and I love Vampire Weekend a lot more than I did in 2014.

If I were writing this column now, I would probably give the belt to Vampire Weekend. But it would be close.

People like to beat up on The Black Keys now, but they really were a good band back in the aughts. When I wrote this column, they were cresting in popularity — Brothers and El Camino were big records, and I would still make a case for them being really well-made mainstream rock music. But Turn Blue was the beginning of their downturn, which clearly hasn’t been corrected in the time since.

Meanwhile, The War On Drugs put Lost In The Dream five months before I wrote this. I loved the album and wrote about it for Grantland, but I must have felt it was premature to give them the belt for the period going back to their excellent previous record, Slave Ambient. But, like the man said, things have changed.

If I were writing this column now, I would definitely give the belt to The War On Drugs.

Self-Promotion Time

For Uproxx, I wrote about Passage Du Desir, the great new album by Sturgill Simpson under his new moniker, Johnny Blue Skies. For an artist who has willfully set out to piss people off for the past five years, it’s kind of amazing to see him deliver an actual crowd pleaser (even under the guise of a ridiculous stage name). Can’t wait for the tour.

Also want to shoutout the fine people at The Hideout, which hosted my book event in Chicago this week. It was my favorite show yet. Hey, did I mention you can still buy my book at your bookseller of choice? Well, you can!