Abba are very good too.

It would appear the Beatles , Dire Straights and U2 ar`nt very relevant to the people posting on the thread.
Here`s a few of bands / musicians who are at the top of ny list.

Kevin Coyne
PJ Harvey
Pink Floyd
Frank Zappa
Alternative TV
Cpt Beefheart
The Fall
Cornershop
Motorhead
Julian Cope
The Slits

It depends on what your brought up on , I grew up with New wave and 2tone and just followed that road rather than sink into the mainstream stuff .

Pretty much agree.
It's a bit hard to get away from if you had to share a bedroom with your older brother.
It was all [iThe Jam[/i, [iThe Clash[/i, and [iCostello[/i blasting out of our bedroom when I was a yoof.

Mind you, I took a few beatings for scratching his records when I used to sneak them on when I was home alone.

The Gargoyles.
and
Love.

The thing is people tend to be passionate about fringe bands more than anything because they support smaller acts from the ground up.

the biggest bands in the world were once a fringe band that noone had ever heard of!! Looking left of centre and finding people creating beautiful music is very worthwhile. It's a little like buying a sofa.. you can go to DFS or Argos and you will probably get a nice sofa, albeit a generic, production line one or you can find someone who makes furniture by hand and takes great personal pleasure in every detail, creating something unique, not off the peg. Not the greatest analogy I guess but just because an industry that is becoming increasingly cynical and resistant to change and constantly refusing stray from the "safe bet" is ignoring certain artists certainly doesnt mean they are somehow not as worthwhile and only being listened to for novelty value or kudos is a bit wrong imo. There are some amazing, talented, commited people working not only as artists but people pushing independent music and our support of their amazing work, if you take the time to find it is invaluable.

Take Two!!

Sparklehorse
The Mountain Goats
Elliott Smith
David Ford
Max Richter
Haushka
Ryan Adams
Wilco

Nothing to do with oneupmanship from me, I just get bored very quickly and a band needs to be reinventing itself regularly - having got itself on my radar in the first place - to keep my attention. That's not an issue with new bands as they are new and untested. That and what Bones said, I came fully into music as a part of the 2-Tone generation, but never followed the charts after that. I prefered to find new bands that were following in The Specials footsteps, which after 30 years has led to a very wide range of modern bands from the very punk Eat/Defeat through to the pure reggae of The Skints and taking in everything offbeat in the middle.
Rock doesn't interest me, there has always seemed to be too much on volume over talent (some are good, but a lot seem not to be - I'm not going to argue the toss, you'll think my tastes are awful too!), pop is too 'targeted' etc etc.

I know what I like at the end of the day, but I don't see the need to listen to the same bands endlessly.

The Strokes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Queens of the stone age
RATM
The Thrills
Biffy Clyro (first 3 albums)
The Coral
Guns n roses
Muse (first 2 albums)
Phoenix
REM
The Virgins
Wolfmother

Are they from New York by any chance?

Genesis
The Police
The Blue Nile
Status Quo
Queen
Black Sabbath (Ozzy era)
The Beatles
The Rolling Stones (all eras....I don't subscribe to the non-argument of "not done anything decent since 'insert your year,here'" )
Peter Gabriel
Bacharach/David
Led Zep
The Who
Phil Collins' first 3 albums

AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Led Zep, Springsteen, The kinks, Guns n Roses (upto Use Your Illusion I and II), Thunder, Skin, Little Angels.

More recent bands, Alter Bridge, Airbourne, Theory of a Deadman, Black Stone Cherry,