What is the Best Rock Song of All Time? That is an impossible question to answer. Judging rock songs, or any form of art, is subjective and what is a great rock song to me may not be a great rock song to you. But in the interest of responding to ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY announcing their Best Rock Song of All Time, I thought we would get involved in the impossible task of naming the BEST rock song.
How do you even judge the Best Rock Song? My producer, Ian, asked me on the air “How do you define a great rock song?” Live on the air with no time to give it thought - I defined a great rock song as a song that is a “guitar-driven song with strong drums that inspires raw passion.” With more thought I know I can add to that definition, but I do think that is the simple essence of a rock song.
Great rock songs are driven by strong guitars and powerful drums and they always touch our raw passion. Not that you should - but listening to a great rock song makes you want to drive faster and conjures up a mental image of some kind of definitive pose that you strike in front of women as if the song defines your innermost self. Truly great rock songs are special.
During the discussion of the greatest rock songs on my talk show today on WWL-AM-FM-WWL.com and the Audacy app, someone in our audience said we had forgotten an era by not talking about grunge rock, like “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Does rock include grunge? Yes, it has to, but when the word “rock” is used to describe a genre of music, it seems to naturally suggest the rock of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. While grunge songs are indeed rock - I think a conscious effort must be made to realize that grunge does fit into the category of rock and today the early grunge songs have become “classic rock.”
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY named “I Love Rock ‘N Roll” by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts as the Best Rock Song Of All Time and I have to admit that’s a legit choice. There are so many great rock songs, but “I Love Rock ‘N Roll” could be the quintessential rock song with the beat and the lyrics and paint the image of playing and hearing great rock in a public setting.
Here are some of the other great rock songs that our audience contributed:
“Bohemian Rhapsody” Queen
“Dream On” Aerosmith
“Free Bird” Lynyrd Skynyrd
“Fore Play/Long Time” Boston
“Tom Sawyer” Rush
“Livin’ On A Prayer” Bon Jovi
“Here I Go Again” Whitesnake
“Stairway To Heaven” Led Zeppelin
“Carry On My Wayward Son” Kansas
“Cherry Pie” Warrant
“Enter Sandman” Metallica
“Hotel California” The Eagles (I disagree - doesn’t fit definition of rock)
And yes:
“Smells Like Teen Spirit” Nirvana
“Alive” Pearl Jam
There were great rock songs from European groups, but the “rock genre” is an American institution. The songs that qualify as the “best” rock songs are songs that literally moved America - physically and emotionally.
There is new rock and much of it is awesome, but the question remains as to whether some of the newer rock coming out will last in the vein of the aforementioned rock classics we talked about on the show today.
If you want to check out some newer, original rock - check out: Greta Van Fleet, which has a sound that rivals Led Zeppelin, Dirty Honey, Halestorm, The Warning, Machine Gun Kelly, and Arctic Monkeys.
But for the Boomer generation to the Zoomer generation, the greatest rock songs are those songs that carry memories and that make us feel a raw passion that we are not always sure what to do with.