just for kicks and giggles.....

grand funk or zz top?

my gut tells me it could be a very intereting result.

I don't often vote in these polls because I have trouble choosing, but this is easy. ZZ Top all the way for me. I loath Grand Funk, the vocals really grate on me. When they come on the radio I have to turn the channel immediately. I suspect I am in the minority here, though.

Easy ZZ Top pick for me. If ZZ Top had broken up in say, 1980, the careers of the two bands would be very similar; really solid above average albums, great live reputation, and a couple of smash Classic Rock staples 50 years down the road from their releases, and fond memories from fans of hard rocking 70s acts. But ZZ Top's second peak was inarguably bigger than anything else the two bands did, and resulted in another few albums that made a mark on the mainstream of pop music, And while I think their 80s stuff has not aged as well as their 70s stuff, it's still good.

I'm also partial to ZZ Top because I got the live experience though, where everything gets grittier, bluesier, and a little bit more creative. And that hasn't happened with Grand Funk, although they have a decent reputation there, too.

I'm glad they both exist, though.

Easy pick for me as well. ZZ Top. Some classics in both catalogs, but ZZ Top's feels more solid overall to me.

I've never seen Grand Funk live, but I did see Mark Farner as an opener. He worked up to the encore, and my buddy kept yelling "American Band! American Band!" I said he wasn't going to play that - I'd just read an article about him finding religion and he said he wouldn't play that again because he didn't want to send that kind of message. My buddy said, "He'd better not play "Loco-Motion" or I'm outta here." Farner came out, started the clap intro to "Loco-Motion", and my buddy was out of the row by the second clap.

Plus Don Brewer sang lead on American Band.

ZZ Top were one of the very first bands I got into as a kid, so I voted for them. They were directly responsible for me wanting to play the guitar. I heard their first album at a barbeque at my friend's older brother's place and I'd never heard anything like it before. I was about eleven I think.

While I loved ZZ’s videos in the 80s and love to see Billy Gibbons live, in my heart it’s Grand Funk Railroad where I was a big fan in the 70s. I might be the only one who plays Shinin’ On (has to be one of the most under rated songs ever). often. In fact just heard Some Kind Of Wonderful on our local Morning Radio program and was pleasantly surprised it’s still on a station’s rotation.

Closer To Home (I’m Your Captain) is also a stone cold FM radio classic that’s also under played here on LI for some reason.

i find grand funk railroad to be, quite possibly, the single most under-rated act in all of rock and roll history.

i'm not sure if it is because of the bashing they constantly got form the rock critics of time or the backlash of 'some kind of wonderful' (sort f like three dog night with 'joy to the world") as being a sell-out to top 40 radio.

they have a string of great albums with song after song that had had great singing and great playing and great writing throughout.

i will never figure out their lack of admiration in the rock world.

on the other hand, i find zz top to be the most mundane monotonous band ever to gain the popularity that they did. i'm sure the girlie and car video's on MYV helped them immensely with the young males at that time (grand funk missed the video age) and the beards were 'cool' i wish that they would have tried one or tow songs with a different guitar tone at some point.

i will never figure out the amount of admiration they get, hell, they are in the rock hall and grand funk has never even been nominated!

ZZ all the way. Not even close. One of the best live acts ever...

were they really live..............

Grand Funk Railroad also sold out Shea Stadium just 5 years after the Beatles, they were big for a while.



In the Summer of 1973 my favorite song was We’re An American Band, I had the 45 single that was made of clear yellow vinyl instead of the usual black vinyl. I still turn that one up when it comes on in the car! That intro!

I voted ZZ Top.

Both bands had great early & mid-70s albums. Both eventually released bland studio albums. For me, ZZ Top held it together better longer. That said, the Top never released an album to beat "We're An American Band", although "Fandango" came close, IMO.

The big rock critics really, really don't like populist rock and roll. Punk was pushed as a revolt against AOR, I personally noticed it first with a bunch with Glam Metal bands, and of course Nickelback became the poster child for it. Most of Pop Punk also got the same treatment. I'm not going to argue ability between sub-genres and eras, but in a lot of ways, I think Blink 182 and Grand Funk achieved the same relative level of success and critical derision, while holding the same levels of mass popularity and influence level relative to their peers at the time. (somewhere between 4th and 8th biggest bands of their eras, depending on who you include as peers)

I also think the thing with ZZ Top is that their resurgence paired with SRV's Texas Flood and George Thorogood's Bad to the Bone was just so different than what was happening at that time in pop music. Their 70s stuff IS basic white boy Texas electric boogie blues, and I love it. But their 80s stuff helped fill a need young people didn't know they had, and helped lead new audiences to old music. They were a gateway to other things for some people, and I don't think Grand Funk was able to do that, as good as they were.

My 0.02.

I also think that ZZ’s Texas boogie sound has aged better than the 1970’s Midwest Hard Rock (Grand Funk are from Flint MI). That muscular macho sound heard by people like The Amboy Dukes (Ted Nugent), MC5, The Stooges just hasn’t aged as well.

The Stooges are timeless.

I agree, the 70s are my sweet spot and I love that genre of music. Not that I don’t dig Texas boogie either.