Ten Best Miami Bands of All Time

3. Harry Pussy. Twenty years since it started shrieking and more than a decade after going silent, Harry Pussy is finally getting the credit it deserves. Thanks in no small part to the popular resurgence of axe man Bill Orcutt's solo career as an acoustic deconstructionist, the Pussy — once a cult phenomenon — is becoming increasingly recognized as one of American noise-rock's most important bands. Of course, no vocalist has yet to re-create Adris Hoyos's deranged yelping or her runaway-train drumming style. And despite Orcutt's ascetic dedication to four-strings, comparing his circuitous arrangements to the compositions of his sonic descendants would be like trying to draw parallels between basic addition and differential calculus. Matt Preira

2. Miami Sound Machine. Laugh all you want, but so many of our city's contemporary groups, from Afrobeta to Otto Von Schirach to Avenue D, owe Gloria and Emilio Estefan's Miami Sound Machine an enormous debt. It would take eight studio albums for this Latin-pop powerhouse to earn mainstream success with 1984's Eyes of Innocence, the group's first English-language album. But "Dr. Beat" was only the beginning of a string of massively popular Sound Machine singles, including "Conga" and "Rhythm Is Gonna Get You." Still, there's just something about the group's original breakthrough single and its sugary hook, "Doc-doc-doc-doc, Dr. Beat/Won't you help me, Dr. Beat?" It's a plea for a cure to dance fever that would later be mimicked by everyone from Gwen Stefani to Kylie Minogue. Jose D. Duran

Jules Allen

Uncle Luke and 2 Live Crew: Best in the MIA.

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1. 2 Live Crew. Ain't nobody in the history of Dade County ever been as nasty or repped harder for First Amendment rights than 2 Live Crew. And the whole gloriously horny tale began in late 1985, when Miami party promoter and label boss Luther "Uncle Luke" Campbell signed the Crew's Cali founders Mr. Mixx and Fresh Kid Ice, brought them to the 305, assumed essential hype-man duties, and added superfilthy homeboy Brother Marquis to the fold. Four years and two slabs later, Luke, Mixx, Kid, and Marquis unleashed their definitively smutty masterpiece, As Nasty As They Wanna Be. It landed them on the Broward County Sheriff's obscenity shit list. It earned them heat from Tipper Gore and the D.C. censors. It got them Banned in the U.S.A. But eventually, it took them to the Eleventh Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, where 2 Live Crew finally defeated the prudes and the pigs. An immortal victory for the freaks. Throw the D! S. Pajot

Read New Times' expanded list, "The 50 Best Miami Bands of All Time."