HOW WE CHOSE THE WINNERS
These days, July 4th is a pretty cozy little holiday. You can count on plenty of weenie roasts, Shriners’ mini-car parades, and some lame action movie starring Will Smith.
Where’s the rocket’s red glare? Fuck amber waves of grain — we want some bombs bursting in air!
To celebrate our sleepy national birthday, the Phoenix tried to rouse July 4th out of its La-Z-Boy, so we planted 50 little seeds of musical discord.
To wit, we picked the all-time best band, all-time best solo artist, and best new band from each of the 50 states. (That’s 150 winners in all.) Few of these decisions came easily. Some of them almost turned our judges into figures from a Ken Burns documentary, with amputations and plaintive letters home to our moms. Here are the ground rules.
The 50 all-time best bands: based on where the band was formed. We allowed some elasticity here, like if the band members met in art school in one state and then moved to another state, we gave it to the state that needed it most.
The 50 all-time best solo artists: we were much stricter on this one. To win this category for a given state, you had to be born there. If it’s good enough for your passport, it’s good enough for us.
The 50 best new bands: this could also be read as best newish band, because some of our winners aren’t exactly brand-spanking new. But the acts we selected for this category are, for a general audience, relatively undiscovered. Cue up your MySpace now.
As a bonus, we also tossed in three more acts from the nation’s capital. All we ask in return is that you help us out on some of the toughest decisions we faced: three categories were so arduous that we decided to leave the judging to you, dear reader. See inside on how your votes can help determine the outcome of our final three contests.
You want fireworks, you got ’em. We’ve lit the match. Discuss.
The following also helped in the preparation of this piece: Matt Ashare, Megan Bell, David Bieber, Michael Brodeur, Carly Carioli, Charlie (The Sandbox), Caitlin Curran, Vanessa Czarnecki, Keith Dakin (WFNX), Ellee Dean, Fletcher (The Sandbox), Rick Gallagher, Jon Garelick, Lance Gould, Mike Johnson, Sean Kerrigan, Nina MacLaughlin, Mike Miliard, Lou Papineau, James Parker, Ian Sands, Special Ed (The Sandbox), Will Spitz, Sharon Steel, and Ryan Stewart.
