Vie try to interpret angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) cross sections directly in band-structure terms by approximating the one-particle propagator needed to evaluate the lowest-order Keldysh diagram using the bulk Green function. As applications to YBa2Cu3O7 and Sr2RuO4 demonstrate, this is a sensible approach, since it reproduces important features of experimental curves. Matrix element effects strongly enhancing the contributions of individual bands at certain energies and depressing them at others are well described. Self-energy corrections included in an average way improve the agreement and allow for a rough estimate of the magnitude of the band broadening. in the case of YBa2Cu3O7 our investigations demonstrate the significance of correlations, since adding self-interaction corrections to the local density approximation leads to considerable improvement of the calculated ARPES cross sections.