Tonight i'm listening to Savior by Rise Against, one of the best tracks i've heard in a while.
Last time i left a picture that hinted at what i was going to bang on about now, but i think i have changed my mind. i was always going to do the list in order, but now i am not entirely sure whether to go from 1 - 100 or 100 - 1. Probably if i was getting paid to do this then i would have to 'build up' to the number 1. But that's awfully American and while i love the country (esp San Diego) and the rock music (as i write, Dakota by The Stereophonics, a good Welsh band is playing), the '
Americanisation' fucks me off.
I'm convincing myself to start at 1 and work to 100. I can't say 'go down the list' or anything because they are all excellent songs.
But i think i want to bang on about what rock music is. Wikipedia (and I promise never to do this again) says
"
Rock music is a genre of
popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s
rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by
rhythm and blues and
country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as
blues and
folk, and incorporated influences from
jazz,
classical and other musical sources.
Musically, rock has centred around the
electric guitar, usually as part of a
rock group with
bass guitar and
drums. Typically, rock is song-based music with a 4/4 beat utilizing a
verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like
pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.
By the late 1960s a number of distinct rock music sub-genres had emerged, including hybrids like
blues rock,
folk rock,
country rock, and
jazz-rock fusion, many of which contributed to the development of
psychedelic rock influenced by the
counter-cultural psychedelic scene. New genres that emerged from this scene included
progressive rock, which extended the artistic elements;
glam rock, which highlighted showmanship and visual style, and the diverse and enduring major sub-genre of
heavy metal, which emphasized volume, power and speed. In the second half of the 1970s,
punk rock both intensified and reacted against some of these trends to produce a raw, energetic form of music characterized by overt political and social critiques. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of other sub-genres, including
New Wave,
post-punk and eventually the
alternative rock movement. From the 1990s alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of
grunge,
Britpop, and
indie rock. Further fusion sub-genres have since emerged, including
pop punk,
rap rock, and
rap metal, as well as conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including the
garage rock/
post-punk and
synthpop revivals at the beginning of the new millennium.
Rock music has also embodied and served as the vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major sub-cultures including
mods and
rockers in the UK and the "
hippie" counterculture that spread out from San Francisco in the US in the 1960s. Similarly, 1970s
punk culture spawned the visually distinctive
goth and
emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of the
protest song, rock music has been associated with political activism as well as changes in social attitudes to race, sex and drug use, and is often seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult
consumerism and conformity."
Followed by a whole bunch of historical crap.
The answer is that rock does centre around the electric guitar, but it has to be played to rock (unlike the way i play) You can use an electric guitar to play all sort of gay, happy clappy bollocks.
The vocals in rock - great rock, for me, are important when you feel that that the singer is really meaning it. The bass and other instruments are important for sound and sometimes noise, but they don't need to be noticable. ( i highly recommend listening to What's the Story, Morning Glory? by Oasis and then straight after listen to Lump by The Presidents of the United States of America for an idea of noise)
I enjoy Rock, and it's subsections. There are many, but Soul is not one of them. In researching this blog (research.... Stezzah, you nerd...) I learnt that there are a lot of top 10 or top 100 lists on the net and that RESPECT by Aretha Franklin shows up near the top on a lot. Well there is no Aretha on my list and there are no apologies (sorry, blatent Nirvana reference) for that.
Under rock are things like heavy metal, metal, punk, indie, sca, and things that that. My personal favourite is grunge and if you don't like it, nevermind, i'm mellowship slinky in B Major.
There will be blues, which i feel is a bridge to soul, which is in turn a bridge to R & B, which is turn a bridge to rap and then you get rap rock crossover such as some Faith No More, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Beastie Boys.
It's late, I'm old, the kids are asleep, the blog is long (stoopid wikipedia) and feel i have 20mins to run some people over in GTA SA so I'll say goodbye (Dance Exponents) and leave with this: Tomorrow i will either; start the list or bang on about how rock bands don't always release 'rock' songs and that even Robbie Williams can release a rock song and why this is confusing and annoying to me. Stay in your own genre dammit.
X, by Bailterspace is thumping along merrily as i bugger off.
