And he had charisma and caught lightning in a bottle and became the guy who cut the ribbon for rock ‘n roll, and it was here to stay. Sure Elvis had some great songs - I can’t think of any - I mean that are great, except “In the Ghetto” which arguably Nick Cave did better - but they’re there. Black musicians were selling their music to white kids, but it took a white star to make the music an industry. Elvis was a very average musician, with a very good voice that came along at the right time, to be the white, commercial, acceptable bridge from what was then known as Race Music to what became known as Rock ‘n Roll. The day Elvis died, Johnny Rotten was being interviewed by Rolling Stone and upon being told the King was dead, said: “Good riddance to a fucking load of old rubbish!” While a bit harsh, as music criticism it isn’t that far off. There are a couple of rappers here, because they transcended their success and status in rap.
There aren’t a lot of young people on the list - except, ahem, some of the dead ones - because to be among the greats requires having had an impactful career, and that is more or less achieved over time. Eight groups have multiple rock stars on the list, and four of those have three, including one group, the Yardbirds, that featured three here enshrined who all had their significant success in later bands. There are four Irish rock stars, and 33 dead people on this list. Even when, in some cases, they didn’t want to be. A star is, perhaps by definition, undefinable. So this is a list of rock stars, not necessarily the best musicians, or most important songwriters, (although we won’t have missed many of them).
There came a time in the mid ’60s when rock ‘n roll overwhelmed the pop charts, and the previous giants of record sales, the Sinatras and Miles Davises, receded into the distance, and the generational seam between the Baby Boomers and their parents was sealed. The notion of a “Rock Star” was first mentioned in 1960 - before that and for a while after as well, the biggest musicians of this new, fast evolving musical genre were simply pop stars. And honesty - we say what we really think, whether that’s “safe” or politically correct be damned (as, no doubt, I am forever now, after this). Rock is not science!īut there’s context, and, I would claim, a great deal of thoughtfulness was put into the creation and execution of this. Because, you know, that’s rock ‘n roll too. I say “I did this” not out of vanity - I know, for once, right? - but because this is so subjective, I think it’s important to take responsibility. I ranked everyone and along with several excellent SPIN contributors and the editor Daniel Kohn wrote the entries. In fact we didn’t even, technically, do the “we.” I picked the list. Because that isn’t possible - actually, it is, if you wanted some compilation of who sold the most records/concert tickets/has the most fans/got the most death threats, etc., and someone could come up with a bunch of very empirical metrics and create a “heat index” or something, and could deliver an actual scientific ranking! But we, um, didn’t do that. I’m not saying we did a scientific one either. The problem with lists like this is they are invariably bullshit. So our prime objective was to make sure we didn’t do a bullshit list. Three of the 100 are in this picture! The Rolling Stones, in 1964, from left to right: Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Brian Jones.