Greatest American Band? and Does Neil Peart "swing"?

Late during our drive back from Bob's somewhat-imaginary 40th birthday party in DC, Chuck, Kirk and I debated which was America's Greatest Band. The basic qualifications seemed to be that it needed to be a "band," which I think meant "at least 3 people" and "playing their own musical instruments." Also, the band needed to be American, as in, from the United States of America. So, Canada was out, which DQ'd Rush. 

Chuck started it when he said that an argument could be made that Metallica was the greatest American band ever, so I invited him to make that argument. Chuck offered some criteria: number of hits, quality of albums, influence on music, overall importance, size of fan base. Because I love a good debate regardless of (or, perhaps, because of) my ignorance, I countered that, according to those criteria, a (regrettably) stronger argument could be made for Van Halen. Later, I claimed that, regardless of which of those bands were "greater," neither was as great as the Grateful Dead. We spent some more miles trying to think of a band that could reasonably be called "greater" than the Dead, but I drew a blank. REM, Bruce & the E-Street Band, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, the Beach Boys, Sly & the Family Stone, Aerosmith, KISS, the Doors, Guns n Roses, Nirvana, Velvet Underground. I forget how the Ramones made out. The Eagles came up. Chuck made a case for CCR, and a more impassioned case for the Byrds. I don't recall Kirk taking a stand on the issue. No one mentioned Phish or Journey. But Parliament came up, and we didn't really know how to handle that one. 

Also, Chuck dropped the following bombshell, and stuck to it despite strong resistance from Kirk and me, especially me: Neil Peart is not a great drummer. I told him to take it back, and questioned his sanity. I think all Kirk said to Chuck was, "Oh, c'mon." Chuck's argument was that technical prowess does not equal greatness. He concedes that Peart is a technical master, but goes on to claim that technical mastery is all Peart has; he does not, in addition, also "swing." We listened to Rush, loudly, all the way from the freeway in Indy to Kirk's house. I thought it was swinging, but who's to say?