Top Ten Greastest Rock Songs????

Outside of Pink Floyd, on that list, most of those artists didn't redefine anything until late in their careers.

Nirvana is more heralded now than they were when they came out. Main reason they are remembered is because their lead singer killed himself. Pearl Jam was more popular. And, their sound is more easily recognizable on music right now. If you're talking about leaving a mark, more bands were influenced by Alice in Chains than Nirvana.

Sure, you can say Nirvana popularized the soft to loud format, but the Pixies had already done that in the 80s. The fact that Mother Love Bone and Soundgarden were already making noise long before Nirvana. If you want to get right down to it, you could say that Soundgarden's "Outshined" was like the "Rock Around the Clock" of the grunge era and Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" was the "Hound Dog."

Nirvana were popular, but are more popular now because of Cobain. That is revisionist history, to give him more credit than he deserves. If Cobain were still alive, they would have faded into obscurity quickly, or most likely have broken up after releasing three good rock records.

In fact, I would say that Dave Grohl is having more success in the Foo Fighters than he did in Nirvana. He may not be as big of a celebrity, but he certainly is having a more lasting stay.

 

you have some points in there, but I grew up in Seattle and remember the scene quite well. Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, in my opinion, were better bands (i remember seeing Soundgarden in a coffee shop), but Nirvana added the pop hooks and brought grunge into the mainstream. It doesn't really matter when in their career a band makes a mark, most do it early and then taper off. Some do it consistently like the first 6 Led Zeppelin albums. And others take a while for their music to really evolve into something interesting. Alice in Chains were late comers to the scene. Listen to some of the early Sub Pop label bands, that was the beginnings of something new and the death of 80s glam rock, suddenly how you played made more difference than how you looked. Hopefully we're coming back around to that part of the cycle again... but I haven't seen anything revolutionary for quite a while.

 

I grew up listening to Tad, Mudhoney, Coffin Break, and so on and so forth. I was really into grunge as a kid.

I know it doesn't matter when a band makes a mark, I just meant as far as making an immediate impact with their music in a broad sense, a la the grunge bands, Elvis, etc.

Most of the British Invasion bands got popular playing rock and roll in a style very similar to 50s rock bands. If I were to say which of the Brit Invasion bands I think had a huge impact right out of the gate, it would be the Kinks. "You Really Got Me" is hard to overlook as far as musical impact, sure Link wray had done it with a slashed amp before, but not to the level that the Kinks took it.

 

where is led zeppelin in this picture? if stairway to heaven doesnt make it surely dazed and confused will. acdc and nirvana are given too much credit. the rolling stones should peak the top 5 as should jimi hendrix. led and jimi are by far what defined rock in the early stages of its growth.

 

Oh, so rock pretty much started in the 70s, right?

 

I agree about Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix, but not about AC/DC and Nirvana... personally I think that the Rolling Stones are overrated as well. I think that Led Zepp and Jimi are definitely the founding fathers of metal, if not rock, but I think that Nirvana (and Pearl Jam and Soundgarden moreso) are very, very influential in the modern rock sound. Nirvana added a pop-like catch to it that made it more mainstream. Almost all rock today could really be called post-grunge rock due to its influence. Although, things are changing now and there is a strong garage-rock/80s sound coming through in bands like the White Stripes, the Strokes, the Hives, the Vines, and one of my current faves, Franz Ferdinand.

 

janes addiction fucking kicked seattle in the balls. talk about not enough credit.

 

JA's not my thing, it's a shame they had to influence any bands, let alone the numerous bands they have. They, along with RHCP, pretty much covered the radio with crap I didn't want to hear. I understand that a lot of people like both bands, I just can't stand either one.

I guess it's better than the neo-grunge crap on the radio these days.

I'm just glad the Black Crows went away.

 

The Blues gave us Rockabilly (early Elvis)
Rockabilly gave us Early Rock (Beatles and Stones)
Early Rock gave us the beginnings of Heavy Metal (Hendrix, Zeppelin and the like)
Heavy Metal gave us Acid Rock (most Doors songs and later Pink Floyd)
Acid Rock gave way to Punk (Sex Pistols and to some extent the Clash)
When people couldn't relate to that we got Pop Rock (Bon Jovi and the like)
Then we got Southern Rock (Skynerd, Molly Hatchet, etc), then Grunge Rock (Niverana, STP, and the rest), then Goth Rock (Marilyn Manson, etc) and now we have damn near everything called Rock and Roll (even Brittney and Christina).

This in a nutshell is why you'll never come up with a list that is in any way definative. Too many options to choose from. If you break it down back into the sub categories you could quite possibly come up with the definative list for each, you'll never do it for them lumped together.

 

Where is Stevie Ray Vaughns music?