10 May 2017

Four Dozen Monsters of Rock (Give or Take)

My Facebook friends are aware (or, some of them, anyway), that over the past month or so I've been compiling a list of the best and most popular songs by more or less four dozen seminal rock bands and metal musicians from roughly the past four decades. Not sure what prompted me to do this, exactly; I suppose it was a conglomeration of factors, but so it goes. I prepared a Spotify playlist of this auspicious collection of music, a veritable course in rock 'n' roll cultural literacy, not only for my own enjoyment, but with the intention of sharing it with my family and friends. Alas, my first attempt to disseminate the fruits of my labors has fallen flat on its face, because the way I created the playlist (importing the music from Windows Media Player on my computer) meant that most others are not able to access it or listen to it, and, in most cases, are not even able to see the list. Major sadness!

Well, I'm not going to list all of the songs in that massive playlist, which would amount to ten full days of solid listening. Not that there's anything wrong with that! But, for those who are interested, I did promise to provide a list of the acts and artists included among my collected "Monsters of Rock." And true to my word, here it is. The ordering of the artists is neither alphabetical nor chronological, but is the order in which I actually came up with the list from out of my own head.  It's "roughly" four dozen artists, give or take, because you'll notice that I've combined some acts together, guitarists and/or vocalists with their bands in addition to their solo material and side projects. Yes, to be sure, there are many other rock bands and metal musicians who might have been included. But they aren't. Gotta draw the line somewhere, and these are my personal favorites.

In (parentheses) following each line item I've indicated the number of songs I've included in my playlist from that particular band and/or musician. The number of songs has mostly to do with the number of albums available, which is largely a matter of how many years the artist(s) has/have been making music. For some, the canon has been closed for awhile. For others, the music is still coming. None of these acts or artists have fewer than four albums, but some of them have upwards of a dozen.

For the benefit of the curious, and for those who minds work like mine, I determined which songs to include in my playlist on the basis of internet searches for the most popular and frequently played songs by each of these bands and musicians. In most cases, that meant a Google search of the artist and his "best top favorite songs." That usually brings up a list of the 51 most played YouTube videos (so far as I can determine), as of the time of the search. I've also made use of the Top 50 Songs site, powered by Last.fm, which similarly offers a list of the top fifty songs (go figure) from last fm (!). In a few cases, I had to do a little more searching, relying on various music blog reviews of albums, and/or The Top Tens site, which is actually pretty cool, especially for a guy like me who likes lists.

So, anyway, that's what I've done, and here are the artists that I deemed the "Monsters of Rock" from the early 70s to the present day. Feel free to lob stones, offer suggestions, make comments, shower me with kudos, or whatever. If I figure out a way to do it, if and when I actually have the time, I may take another stab at creating a new Spotify playlist that all y'all can actually access and listen to. Until then, rock on, rock on, and may the odds ever be in your favor, etc., etc.

Black Sabbath (93 songs)

Ozzy Osbourne (78 songs)

Led Zeppelin / Jimmy Page / Page & Plant (78 songs)

Judas Priest / Halford (109 songs)

Scorpions (98 songs)

Van Halen / David Lee Roth (84 songs)

Bon Jovi (94 songs)

Shinedown (45 songs)

Def Leppard (80 songs)

AC/DC (96 songs)

Black Stone Cherry (44 songs)

Daughtry (40 songs)

Deep Purple (100 songs)

Queen (110 songs)

KISS (106 songs)

Dio / Heaven and Hell (69 songs)

Motley Crue (74 songs)

Guns ‘N’ Roses (50 songs)

Iron Maiden (98 songs)

Metallica (84 songs)

Megadeth (110 songs)

3 Doors Down (56 songs)

Foreigner (76 songs)

Dream Theater / James Labrie (130 songs)

Volbeat (48 songs)

All That Remains (56 songs)

Theocracy (37 songs)

Avenged Sevenfold (56 songs)

Tremonti / Alter Bridge / Creed (101 songs)

Slash / Velvet Revolver (57 songs)

Saxon (129 songs)

Amaranthe (40 songs)

Jorn / Allen Lande (94 songs)

Primal Fear (85 songs)

Dragonforce (54 songs)

W.A.S.P. (77 songs)

Disturbed (57 songs)

Stryper (62 songs)

Night Ranger (70 songs)

Whitesnake / Coverdale Page (91 songs)

Rainbow (56 songs)

Sammy Hagar / Chickenfoot (68 songs)

Journey (92 songs)

Loverboy (50 songs)

Styx (80 songs)

Firewind / Gus G (68 songs)

Black Veil Brides / Andy Black (43 songs)

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