Type the words ‘best bands of all time’ into Google and you get a plethora of results. Literally. Hundreds upon hundreds of publications, lists where these authors of said publications, try to determine who they reckon are the greatest bands of history…and as a result, you get a myriad of bands that account for each publication’s personal ‘top 10’…or top _____. There are the non-negotiables in any of these lists, like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Queen, bands which are unanimously known across the board, and are known by everybody to be objectively good, even if people’s personal tastes change across the years and people fall in and out of love with a certain band over time (for example, one diehard group of people may love Queen forever, while another group won’t and another group would be indifferent about them altogether). Then there’s the bands that show up in most publications and are agreed on for the most part by these publications- bands from the likes of The Beach Boys, The Bee Gees, The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, to The Police, Chicago, Simon & Garfunkel, and Bon Jovi. There’s also the bands that are sparingly discussed amongst the various publications, present in just a few, but not in others, bands that aren’t necessarily as unanimously agreed upon as Queen or The Beatles, but still agreed on amongst publications here and there- bands that are somewhat on the ‘fringes’, considering their musical niche; bands from the likes of Oasis, Guns‘N’Roses, Foo Fighters, Nirvana and Blondie, to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, The Who, R.E.M. and Metallica; to name a few. U2 is even placed on various publications online, presented by a lot of these internet articles as being one of the best rock bands of all time. U2 was an artist that I wrote early on in 2019 as part of my Top 100 Artists initial blog…and maybe if I had my time again, I would’ve placed them, no question, here in this blog series of 50 Iconic and Identity-Building artists, for sure. Regardless, U2 are considered one of the best of the best…and with songs like ‘With or Without You’, ‘All I Want is You’, ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ and ‘Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’, need I say more?

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