VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock

[magenta321]

I am currently watching VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock and it's bringing up so many important points in my mind.

1. I don't agree with VH1's definition of Hard Rock. To me, there is pop. An example of pop would be Backstreet Boys. Pop is never rock in my head. There is regular old Rock. An example of Rock would be Creed. There is hard rock. An example of hard rock would be Def Leppard. There is heavy metal. An example of heavy metal would be Metallica.

VH1 seems to think anything that is not pop is hard rock. I disagree. Boston is not a hard rock band. Neither are 90% of the other bands they have listed from the 1970s.

2. My father thinks he listens to all the classics and that anything that was put out after the days of Frampton Comes Alive (giggle) or whatever that album was, are not worthy of mentioning. About ten years ago, he told me no one would be listening to my music in ten years. He said it was "for the moment" and all of his music would be around for all time. Wrong. Obviously a lot of my music has stood the test of time. So there.

3. I listen to damn good music. The only artists so far on the list that I do not listen to are Korn and Frank Zappa. I never heard anything by Zappa before (except the "down on a muffin" song that a radio station here uses as part of an ad") so you can't fault me on that one. However, I own at least one album by 95% of the artists that have been on here so far. A lot of the bands I have the entire discography.

4. "My" music will be around for a long, long time. I am already buying compilations with the "greatest hits" on them. LOL. I am loving it.

[mrisch[$]]

Well, I agree and I disagree. I think your line between Rock and Hard Rock is far more blurred. I think Creed is totally hard rock, as is Boston (though mellower), as is Rush and even Van Halen.

I suppose they could (and will) include heavy metal (Metallica, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden) into Hard Rock, though that is a bit of a stretch.

These VH1 Greatest specials aren't so special. They're full of bunk.

If it weren't for that stupid Diva Christmas my wife likes, the channel would be in the TV's killfile..

[Flamepillar]

To me, rock was always anything with an electric guitar at all; the level of distortion seemed to be the only difference. Recently it seems that rock is pretty much stuff like Creed, but Metallica seems like rock to me too because it has a discernable melody. I always thought of metal as the stuff that doesn't have a discernable melody, it's just about how much ass you can kick. Hard rock is for all those artists that never play in a major key, always a minor. Playing a guitar solo in C, they would never touch an E note, it's always E flat. Which, theoretically speaking, if you considered C to be the "happy" chord, like this , then the C with E flat instead of E is like the "cool happy" chord with shades like that. I know nobody'll ever understand that until the afterlife but it is a hopeful thought to think that maybe one day everybody will.

[Joubert[$]]

For a while, power pop was in vogue as a term and used to describe bands like Styx, Journey, Kansas and, in a stretch, Boston.

Boston is most definitely a hard rock band.

I think the critical distinction is to look at the music of the time and find the artist's place in that spectrum. Here's a snippet of the All Music Guide's definition of hard rock:

Hard rock is a term that's frequently applied to any sort of loud, aggressive guitar rock, but for these purposes, the definition is more specific. To be sure, hard rock is loud, aggressive guitar rock, but it isn't as heavy as heavy metal, and it's only very rarely influenced by punk (though it helped inspire punk). Hard rock generally prizes big, stadium-ready guitar riffs, anthemic choruses, and stomping, swaggering backbeats; its goals are usually (though not universally) commercial, and it's nearly always saturated with machismo.

Among the bands they list (skipping around): AC/DC, Aerosmith, Bad Company, The Clash, Foreigner, Free, Heart, Jimi, The Kinks, Motorhead, Queen, Rod Stewart, Thin Lizzy, T. Rex, Van Halen

[GohanDZ]

I've seen that list....Tool should be much higher than #88, and what the hell is Korn doing at #53?