KS's Definitive Top 75 Rock Bands/Artists of All Time

5. AC/DC




So what do you do for an encore after having your greatest success to date in Highway To Hell and then losing wildly popular lead singer, Bon Scott in a tragic death? You produce the best selling rock and roll album of all time in Back in Black. Let that sink in for a bit.
Here's another weird little tidbit: Robert John "Mutt" Lange was the Producer for both Highway to Hell and Back in Black. He went on to produce some of Def Leppard's greatest albums. But more importantly he was the dude that was laying the pipe in Shania Twain for so many years!! Anyways......

I saw AC/DC 3 times and all were at Alpine Valley. If you ever go see them at Alpine Valley (or anywhere I suppose), I recommend shrooming. You will think that you were tripping so hard that you saw Angus Young giving the greatest guitar performance of all time. And then when you sober up you'll realize it wasn't even the shrooms!!! It was Angus fricken Young!! Every time I saw them, Brian Johnson was up there doing his thing and being freakin incredible but it was most definitely Angus who was absolutely dominating the show. I suppose I would even go sober if I were forced to.

I was only 8 when they started kicking major ass in 1975 and I didn't really realize all that ass kickage at the time but when I went back years later and checked their library, this was what I found that I liked:
T.N.T., Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll), High Voltage, Whole Lotta Rosie, Can I Sit Next to You Girl, Jailbreak, Let There Be Rock, Let There Be Rock.

And then came 1979's Highway to Hell. If you had this album, and eventually you did, you just played it all the way through. Every time. Non stop. No pausing. Or rewinding or fast forwarding. Just play. The whole thing. You loved every song. You might not even know all the titles but when you hear a particular song from that album you're like "Oh yeah, THAT one!" You have to list them all because they were all incredible: Highway to Hell, Girls Got Rhythm, Walk All Over You, Touch Too Much, Beating Around the Bush, Shot Down in Flames, Get It Hot, If You Want Blood (You've Got It), Love Hungry Man, Night Prowler.

And after that came Back in Black. The first album with Brian Johnson and just a complete masterpiece through and through. If you didn't have this album, you just weren't a man. (Looking at you, Hawger ) This album also contains my favorite AC/DC song of all time, Shoot to Thrill. Anywho, here's another album where you just list them all. That.Damn.Good. Hells Bells, What Do You Do for Money Honey, Given the Dog a Bone, Let Me Put My Love Into You, Back in Black, You Shook Me All Night Long, Have a Drink on Me, Shake a Leg, Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution.

Not sure how the heck you could ever top all of that success, and they never really did afterwords but still produced quite a few songs that I loved: For Those About to Rock (We Salute You), Moneytalks, Thunderstruck, Let's Get It Up, Shake Your Foundations, Heatseeker, That´s The Way I Wanna Rock & Roll, Hard as a Rock, Are You Ready, Stiff Upper Lip.

No complaints.

4. Pink Floyd




Timing is everything. The Wall came out in 1979 when I was 12. I want to say I was in 7th or 8th grade. Those were my last years at St. Rita's in Racine. (Well, Caledonia anyways) I remember hearing about it and everything but the Sister's and other teachers tried to keep us quite distanced from "You Don't Need No Education"
So when I started in the public school system in 9th grade, The Wall and it's aftermath was still dominating a lot of the scene. And I dove in head first. Which eventually led me back through the archives to discover Dark Side of the Moon and everything else.
There's just no other sound like Pink Floyd. I don't even know what to call it. Cosmic? Spacey? Otherworldly? Heaven-like? If God listens to rock and roll, then there's no doubt in my mind that he listens to Pink Floyd.
One thing I've always wondered is if the sober people like Floyd as much as the buzzed peeps. And I think the answer almost has to be yes because back in the 7th, 8th grade at St. Rita's, I had never seen or used an illegal drug in my life.....and yet I loved that music. Then again, once I actually had discovered "various" illegal drugs, Floyd got even better. So there's that.

I think it was just the perfect storm for me and Pink Floyd. Their songs just always seemed to kind of put you in a haze. A glaze. A futuristic look. An inquiring past. Challenged you to find some sort of secrets in life. To ponder. And think.
I mean, I don't know what the fuck you were supposed to be thinking about but once you were deep into a Floyd song it didn't matter. You could be thinking about your damn electricity bill as long as it was deep.

A weird thing with Floyd was their song titles to actual song lyrics ratio. I pretty much can remember the name of like 10 Pink Floyd songs but yet I recognize like 30 more once I hear the actual music. So a lot of times with Floyd you see the song title and you're like "Never heard of it" but you HAVE, you just don't put the two and two together because a lot of their titles are in fact rather obscure.

Another thing they do is have like a 25 minute song but break it down into like 6 parts. You may not know what is what but I guarantee once you hear it you'll be going, "Oh yeah".

I'm sure actual music peeps have a name for it but the most impressive thing to me about Pink Floyd is to have their songs affect me the way faster, harder rock songs and bands do.  I pretty much like a fast, hard song.  Just rock my damn face off.  And while Floyd doesn't go at the speed of light or gimmick their way into your senses, their approach still let's you know that you are listening to some of the hardest, most awesomest rock and rock around. Despite it mostly being mellow, dreamy and cosmic. It's inexplicable to me on how they pulled all of that off. 
I kinda feel like that if you don't like Floyd, you don't like emoticons or kittens.

Just to name a few of their substantial number of hits....First off you go ahead and name the entire Dark Side of the Mood album:  Speak to Me, Breathe, On the Run, Time, The Great Gig in the Sky, Money, Us and Them, Any Colour You Like, Brain Damage, Eclipse.
I mean they weren't evening singing for half of all that. Just jamming.  Surreal.
They follow that up with Wish You Were Here.  And again, just list them all: Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I–V), Welcome to the Machine, Have a Cigar, Wish You Were Here, Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI–IX).

Not sure I really got the Animals album with sheep and pigs and dogs and all of that.  Kinda weird.

After that was The Wall and you just list them all again. You might not know the strange title but there's little doubt that you know the song.

There were a few more songs along the way that I liked after that but those 3/4 albums or so were plenty.

Jethro Tull > pink Floyd

Pink Floyd is too much hippy jam shit for me to like. The wall is ok.


....and your top 3 is pretty much known now.

Its ok. I'll have the official metal list soon. Don't want to steal his thunder.

kesha is right about pink floyd. get that hippy dippy space shit outta here.

they're fine but no where close to top 5 or top 20.

The Dark Side of the Moon was an immediate success; it topped the Billboard Top LPs & Tapes chart for one week and remained in the charts for 741 weeks from 1973 to 1988. With an estimated 50 million copies sold, it is Pink Floyd's most commercially successful album and one of the best-selling albums of all time.

I got this KS:

Watch the NFL Network or the MLB Network, problems solved.  No NBA highlights.

Tesla is fine. The fact that Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys are not in this list is a god damn shame. Are you aware of just how fucking awesome and influential his music was?

Oh the beach boys are rock....they were also peers that influenced the beatles. Brian Wilson also produced fatty Wilson in wilson phillips in addition to his amazing catolague of songs.