The 50 Best Rock Bands (50-31): Staff Picks

One thing is for sure every year around the time of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies — there’s going to be talk about bands. Of course, there’s which bands are getting in this year, and who from those bands is showing up and/or performing, and which members from their earlier or later history have gone unfairly unrecognized. And then inevitably, there’s discussion to which bands have yet to get in, and which are the most overlooked and which seem destined to forever be on the outside. And then finally: Which previously ineligible bands will soon be up for voting for the first time — and do any of them have a real chance of getting in?

With this year’s Rock Hall induction finally coming up this weekend (Nov. 9), we think it’s a good time to look back on rock’s history — from the very beginning up until this century — and figure out which rock bands we at Billboard think still serve as the benchmarks for greatness. Which of the established canon of rock greats do we still think still merit their spots in the genre’s inner circle? Which newer artists do we think belong in there with them? Which artists from regrettably oft-excluded subgenres (or nationalities) do we think additional room should be made for? And who do we think is still the absolute best of the best?

Over the next three weeks, we’ll be counting down our picks for the 50 greatest rock bands of all time, starting this Wednesday (Nov. 5) with 50-31. We tried to keep the focus on true bands, so we didn’t include vocal groups (who don’t play the majority of their own instruments) — or bands who mostly fell in back of their top-billed frontperson — but we weren’t overly fussy in defining “rock” from there. Read our choices over the next few weeks, let us know your own picks, and long live rock and its many exemplary practitioners.