Well, off of the top of my head I think both Nirvana and Green Day are/were 3 piece. All of their albums sell millions, and their music is still in rotation on actual radio stations -not condemned to only be played on the 'classic rock' station.

I used to actually like Rush quite a bit, I even own a couple of their albums (yes, albums not cd's). Once I quit smoking pot though I realized that the music really wasn't all that great and the lyrics make even less sense when you aren't stoned.

As for the number of albums released being in any way related to talent, consider this: I think the band Dokken released at least a dozen studio albums and several live albums, the only song that anyone has ever heard of is Alone Again(might be called Without You actually, it has been a while). Much like the only Rush song anyone has ever heard of is Tom Sawyer. That scientifically proves that Dokken is as good as Rush, right?

 

Funny, the Pavement song I most remember has a song with a lyric about Geddy Lee's voice:

"What about the voice of geddy lee
How did it get so high?
I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy?
(I know him and he does!)"

 

Another guy emailed and mentioned, The Police, Crosby Stills & Nash,
Sublime and Cream as prominent 3 man bands. I didn't really give it much thought, personally. Back when I was a big metal fan I really appreciated bands with 2 guitarists, since one could stay on rhythm while the other soloed, and the music could interweave and overlap and all that stuff real classical type music does. My favorite album ever might still be Metallica's Justice for All, simply for the composition and music.

Donnie, you neglect to mention Dokken's true strength. (Not their music; I certainly couldn't name a song.) It's that they rhyme so well! Has there ever been a better band slogan than "rockin' with dokken" ?? I think not. Hell, I'll give them a bonus point for that, if i ever update band names again.

As for Geddy Lee's voice (I honestly had no idea in the world what his name was before this email; it's not like I've heard Rush or listened to the radio since the 90s.) I don't know what it was about it, but I had such an aversion to it. Plenty of vocalists have high voices, or squeal during portions of songs, etc, and it's never necessarily bothered me. Just Geddy (WTF kind of name is that anyway? Nickname? Short for something? Gedamiah?) and his particular screech. It's just one of those things, and no, it's not fair. But no one ever said my band name ratings were... And if they did, they were lying.

 

On behalf of all Rush fans everywhere, let me apologize for the rudeness of this one misguided soul by saying, "nilfh."

Rush is very good live as well, which wouldn't help their score from you at all of course.