Idolator

I came close with Prince, but that ended a long time ago. (I still stand by 3121, though--it's really the best album he's made this decade, and the most effortless.)

Duran Duran and, to a slightly lesser degree, Echo and the Bunnymen.

Magazine and The Rezillos. For I am an Old.

Al Stewart? Wings? Deee-Lite? the Charlatans?!? I think those question marks are mostly aimed at myself, but yeah, I tend to defend a lot of stuff way past points where defense is absurd. I also tend to get a little defense-y about the Eagles, which I know sounds crazy. But I kind of like adopting bands I used to denigrate and becoming a booster. Like the Doors. Go Doors!

I would say Depeche Mode, but there is never a need to defend them because everyone recognizes their rightful title as "The Greatest Band Of All Time."

I would say Bob Dylan, who's my favorite musician of all time, but he's already sacred cow enough. So, the Mountain Goats.

Bright Eyes. And, shitty as the last Rilo Kiley album was, please shut up about Jenny's clothes.

@jetsetjunta: The Charlatans, really? Once Rob Collins died, the band effectively died with him.

I'm with you on New Order, Maura, even though I would never defend their lyrics. Or the last two records, even though I liked them. Can't wait for the reissues.

I will also defend Rush, early Billy Joel, and the genre of country music as a whole. (although the "everything but country" typically know so little about music it's hardly worth getting involved)

I won't say everything he did is uniformly superb, but anyone attempting to dismiss the work of Warren Zevon within earshot of me might want to shield themselves.

I didn't know other people in this world had to defend New Order too. I've always had a deep love for them and have had many an argument with totally confused people concerning why I care way more about New Order than I do about Joy Division.

Other sacred cow? Easy, Rocket From the Crypt.

Anything Damon Albarn does I'm behind it. I like to pretend that pretty much all of my musical interests don't revolve around him, but they do. My co-workers joke that everything I listen to has seven degrees of separation from Damon, but it's really more like one.

I'm always trying to pass it off as though I suddenly decided on my own to listen to Malian/Chinese/any other international music, I'll spout out facts and claim my respect and love for it, only to be embarrassed when it's revealed that Damon's done a record with said musician and that's where my adoration stems from.

I've been playing Terry Hall and Mushtaq's album "The Hour of Two Lights" at work, and while I tried to use the Terry Hall/Specials credentials for the reason I got into it, I couldn't escape the truth as Damon's little guest vocals rang out and my co-workers gave me smirking glances.

Monkey Operas, cartoon bands, TGTBTQ, NME'S dream of a Blur reunion...I'm for all of it, and will defend him to the end!

hahahaha god help me I think I know my real answer: Todd Edwards

Really? Even hardcore New Order fans don't like "Republic?" Man, just when I thought there was some certainty in this crazy ol' world...

I'm like Michelangelo, I would have at one time picked Prince. But it's thanks to Prince that I learned my true sacred cow is Joni Mitchell.

NIN for me, even thought the last few albums have been somewhat tepid.

I love them so.

I've opened up a few cans of sarcasm defending Steely Dan.

Bands that released a handful of great albums and then called it a day are pretty easy to have as sacred cows, since they didn't hang around long enough to get crappy. So I'm going with Pavement and Galaxie 500.

EDGAR WINTER BAND!! just kidding.

My wife's father would say the band Yes. I don't get that entirely. I had to think about this quite hard, and I think my answer is Dream Theater. And yes, I just imagined the person who typed that as having his hair teased high, an Ibanez in a glass case, and another guitar he doesn't play anymore because he tried to scoop out the frets himself in 88... I swear to you, this is not the case (but I completely understand why you would think that.)

That's easy ... The Church and Squeeze. Different bands from different ends of the spectrum. but each have fanatically devoted fans.

The Smashing Pumpkins (original line-up)...

Khia. No, for real.

True story: I had to walk out of a super-exclusive Portishead show in L.A. when a "friend" decided to go off about how Detroit hip-hop producer/legend Jay Dilla (AKA Jay Dee) was "overrated". It was either walk away or smack the taste of of this girl's mouth, and I'm a lover not a fighter.

So yeah, I'll ride for my man Dilla until the end.

see? I get so mad just thinking about it that I can't even type! I meant to say "slap the taste OUT of her mouth"--like anyone that doesn't recognize the undeniable genius of Dilla has any taste whatsoever...

Oh yeah, I'll happily defend The Specials to the ends of the earth. And just to keep it interesting, Richie Hawtin and the ORIGINAL Van Halen are also on the list...

for me, it's tool.
they're one of the few bands that i liked in high school that i still would go the distance for. sure, they've only put out one record since i've been in high school, but that doesn't really matter, given how often i'm able to go back and revisit their catalogue and find something new.

i would say that my level of devotion is similar to moomintroll in that much of my musical tastes have been influenced by tool... although not everything i listen to can tie back as closely as one degree. especially in the past two years or so.

Manic Street Preachers. Smart rock and agitprop.

For me it's the Clash. For I, too, am old. Sure they were a bit obvious compared to, say, Wire, and sure they were guilty of being just a little too sincere and politically naive, and sure they made some massive blunders. But god help me, the older I get, the more I keep circling back to them.

Also, I dunno if I would go distance for The Replacements - since they didn't see fit to go the distance themselves - but I find it really difficult to take anyone's musical taste very seriously if they don't bow dow before their greatness.

Ditto on the Clash, and also the Beatles, for I am (probably) older. Also, the Pet Shop Boys and, as anyone who reads my comments hear knows, Liz Phair. I keep waiting for Somebody's Miracle to turn into a good album, even though I know it's never going to happen.

Bill Fay
The Wildhearts
Merle Haggard

Belle and Sebastian.

XTC. Better pop-hook writers and wordsmiths you will not find.

Lyle Lovett. Especially because most people just know him as "that ugly dude who used to be married to Julia Roberts".

@The Illiterate: I will go to my death trying to convince people that Somebody's Miracle is redeemable (it is! "Wind & the Mountain" is great!)

…so yeah, Liz Phair.

Elliott Smith.

This is so tough. I can't think of a Sacred Cow that I have continued to carry the torch for. Of course I'm 51, so I've outlived several:

1. The Beatles, starting with watching them on Ed Sullivan at my parents house. But they broke up. At least they went out without ever really jumping the shark.

2. The Dead (I know, right?) but once Pigpen died, the magic was gone. But we'll always have "American Beauty" and "Workingman's Dead." Laugh if you must but if they never happened, and someone brought out those 2 records, people would be losing it.

3. The Rolling Stones, but they lost me after "Exile On Main Street"

4. The Band, but they were pretty much done after "Moondog Matinee.

5. Talking Heads, but after "Remain In Light" not so much.

6. Elvis Costello but after "Get Happy," meh.

7. XTC, but they lost me with "Nonesuch"

8. Jesus & Mary Chain but besides Psychocandy, they're just the Beach Boys with a really bad temper.

9. Velvet Underground, but only the original lineup. As Andy Warhol said when Lou Reed broke up the original band, Lou is "a real fink."

The bands that I feel enduring adoration for usually quit while they were ahead, voluntarily or involuntarily. My Bloody Valentine, Swervedriver, The Germs, fill in blank.
It's really difficult for an artist to sustain creatively at the highest level over more than a few years. Either they flame out, or they get careerist, or they end up working at Walmart like Mo Tucker.

@Aaron Poehler: @Ted Striker: /points at heart, points at you guys like Sammy Sosa

I'm the guy that coined "Wilco wuz robbed." That's my final answer.

Electric Six. I know that there are a lot of people who write them off as a joke band, but I think they're brilliant.

@chaircrusher:

XTC, but they lost me with "Nonesuch"

I agree, that's really a low point for them. I thought they redeemed themselves to a degree with Apple Venus and Wasp Star, though - if you cherry-pick the best tracks off those two, it makes for one solid XTC album.

To your larger point, though:

It's really difficult for an artist to sustain creatively at the highest level over more than a few years. Either they flame out, or they get careerist, or they end up working at Walmart like Mo Tucker.

I feel the same way - I find it hard to unequivocally defend any band that has lasted for a significant amount of time (i.e. a decade or more), because it's inevitable that they will gone down some artistic dead-ends during their lifetime. (I dig The Fall, but you couldn't pay me to listen to Levitate all the way through.)

@D.R. Mosby: Blasphemy! Levitate is fucking brilliant.

Trying to think if I have one now and I don't, not even MBV.

Either Craig Finn or Girl Talk.

HIM. I know a lot of people think they are melodramatic and overrated, but hearing one lame song on the radio does not negate over 10 years of amazing music.

Janet Jackson.
Jay-Z.
The White Stripes.

Basement Jaxx probably, The Roots maybe (not too keen on the last album, this might be a loyalty test).

Information Society.

and also MBV, Camera Obscura, B&S, Talulah Gosh, Anything Box.

Superchunk. And I defend the Fiery Furnaces to my friends daily, so them too.

The Jesus & Mary Chain.

I realise they've been recycling the same three chords and four songs since day one; I recognise that their whole Stooges-do-Velvets-do-Motown schtick could have easily been concocted in a lab...

However, their entire output is beyond criticism.

The Smashing Pumpkins

Love - Arthur Lee may have been a real jerk at times, but there's no denying "Forever Changes".

David Bowie - my first 45 was "Fame" I was four years old.

Duran Duran - still an 11 year old fangirl at heart.

REM - totally lost me after "Automatic" but everything pre "Green" - love. "Accelerate" is the best thing they have put out in years.

NIN - fangirl since I was seventeen - I'm 36 now. The current tour is amazing, seriously.

@TheRunningboard7: anything progressive leads itself perfectly towards fanboyism.

So it has to be Dream Theater and Tori Amos. I even like The Beekeeper (though not THAT much).

I don't have too many, though I have my share of relatively new bands and artists that I'm tired of hearing people go after -- M.I.A., the Hold Steady, Justice -- mostly because the backlash I've seen seems disproportionate to anything they've actually done. I'm more likely to be like this with genres and styles than individual bands ("disco sucks" and "more like (c)rap music" = man, fuck you).

Still, the closest I'll ever get to feeling completely dumbstruck at someone not liking an artist without being able to write it off as an agree-to-disagree deal or "just, like, your opinion, man"? The first time I run across someone who really, legitimately dislikes P-Funk.

(I also kinda carry a torch for post-Syd, pre-Wall Pink Floyd, though if I got fight-to-the-death-angry at everyone who dismissed them on the internet I'd have to be strapped to a gurney. So I largely gave up on defending them.)

Frank Zappa, Todd Rundgren, Mike Keneally.

Pearl Jam.

Ladies and gentlemen.........Miss Grace Jones

Pink Floyd. I've mentioned this before that they are my all time favorite band, and I have had to defend them to my fellow indie hipsters

@natepatrin: Don't give up! they made some fantastic material! have these idiots heard "The Nile Song"? or "Free Four"? or "Pigs"? or "Set the Controls"? and how could an intelligent human hate "Dark Side" or "Wish You Were Here"?

Like a lot of folks, I was a diehard Prince fan. And then I died.

If you want obscure, though, I will defend Scot group Danny Wilson's 1987 debut, Meet Danny Wilson, to anyone who'll listen. This record will never get the acclaim it so richly deserves.

Sure, it's fun to say mean things about a band and have people react to them...

@soundbitesnyc: This post was written by Dan, not Maura.

My answer: The Beatles. I'm too lazy to think of any other artists. For that matter, nowadays I don't have the energy to get into arguments over music.

If you make fun of the Foo Fighters in my presence, I will claim temporary insanity when I'm put on trial for your brutal, seemingly senseless murder.

==TJ==

@revmatty: "The Holy Bible" is flawless.

Devo and The Clash.

@moomintroll:

i am so right there with you. my friends love it, because they know they can rile me up so ridiculously easily just by saying something about how weak the great escape is or something like that.

actually, theres part of me that thinks, nay, knows, that damon albarn is kinda a prick, but the rest of me doesnt give two shits.

also, there are many bands i love more than them, but for some reason i really dont like people talking shit about the auteurs.

ooh, and xtc as well.

Faces.

I run into so many people who have no idea that Rod Stewart was at one time totally incredible.

For me, it's absolutely Blue Rodeo. There are some other groups lingering in the background, too. I've got jetsetjunta's back with Wings and the Eagles and I'll go to bat with drjimmy11 for Billy Joel.

@Charlie Kerfelds Jetsons Tee: I agree, I stand up for Rod and everyone thinks I mean "Do You Think I'm Sexy" era. Rod the Mod is not well known.

This Heat, The Ramones, Jandek, Iron Maiden... so many sacred cows really

LCD Soundsystem. James Murphy hasn't done anything critically panned yet, but when it happens, I will probably be on the front lines defending it.

Even though they've sucked for close to two decades now, I get agitated and close to violence when other people criticize the Pretenders. I won't even learn their songs or sing them at karaoke, because the first two Pretenders albums are sacred and I refuse to debase the songs with my bad singing.

@NoNewYork: If someone goes after The Great Escape you can always shut them up with The Universal. Thank God that's on the album otherwise it would be difficult to stand up for.

I believe the correct answer is, "none, I'm not psychotic." What's my prize?

Thumbs up to whoever mentioned Information Society...

Also agree with New Order, including the "anything up to 'Republic' caveat. Beyond that, my personal sacred cows are most likely to be:

Wire - I actually discovered their 80s output first. Amazing how every album can sound completely different yet still completely brilliant.

Meat Beat Manifesto - discovered realtime video sampling and went all EBN for their live show, making them just about the best electronic show around this side of Daft Punk.

Kraftwerk -'Nuff said.

R.E.M. I'll even defend about half of Around the Sun.

Better Than Ezra. Kevin Griffin became a truly great songwriter around 1998; it's too bad everybody had already written them off.

Electric Six. Amazing live.

@Reidicus: I like Republic