The votes have been tabulated ...
Some One Million Strong ...
And now the final results are in.
For the past few months, we have been counting down, in order
THE TOP 3333 MOST ESSENTIAL CLASSIC ROCK SONGS OF ALL TIME
... as determined by YOU!
You can view the COMPLETE list simply by hitting the "older posts" link at the bottom of each page.
And please pass along our website information so that others can enjoy it, too!

THE TOP 3333 MOST ESSENTIAL CLASSIC ROCK SONGS OF ALL TIME Countdown Begins On Monday (October 7th)!!!

Get ready, people ...

And welcome to 

ROCKTOBER!!!  

That's right, folks ...

It's FINALLY here!!!

After five months nominations, voting and tabulating, the final list is ready to reveal.

A few observations first ...

What We've Done:
Over the course of the past five months, we have been tabulating votes from YOUR list of candidates in order to select THE TOP 3333 MOST ESSENTIAL CLASSIC ROCK SONGS OF ALL TIME.  This has entailed recording the results of a 100 day nomination process, 46 individual online ballots, monitoring the actual airplay of this music on thirty different Classic Rock Stations from coast to coast and factoring in actual downloads of this music thru iTunes.  As a result, we have compiled the most comprehensive list of favorites ever assembled.

What Makes Our List Different?:   
This list wasn't put together by three guys in the basement after each has finished off a six pack of beer, incoherently mumbling, "Dude ... 'Layla' is the greatest rock song ever!" / "No way, man ... it's 'Stairway To Heaven" / "You guys are BOTH nuts ... it's Lynyrd Skynyrd all the way ... 'Free Bird' ... 'Free Bird' ... 'Free Bird!'" as they then all light candles and babble "Yeah, man ... we should make a mix tape of the greatest rock songs ever!" before everyone slowly passes out for the night.  Well, this is OUR mix tape ... and it's incredible.  Please understand, I'm not talking "Guardians Of The Galaxy" good ... OUR mix tape has 3333 of the very best classic rock songs ever on it ... and it was put together by ALL of YOU.  This truly is collectively OUR mix tape!

It's also not a bunch of high-strung critics working for a publication that feel like "We have to come up with 'x' number of names that people won't recognize, just to prove that we're way cooler and artsier and more knowledgeable than you are."  If it's the best of all-time, people really should know (or at least have heard of) the songs and artists on this list.  (Now don't get me wrong ... there were at least a couple hundred songs nominated that I'd never heard before in my life ... and, although I ultimately listened to every single one of them, there are still quite a few that made the final list that I can't honestly say I'm intimately familiar with ... but once the final balloting started and I saw how many votes were coming in for some of these songs that were "new" to me, I saw that these songs ARE part of the general consciousness of Classic Rock Nation.)  This is part of what makes OUR list so unique and definitive.  In the case of compiling THE TOP 3333 MOST ESSENTIAL CLASSIC ROCK SONGS OF ALL TIME, it truly DID take a village.

It's also not based on radio call in requests songs where the guys on the phone as the disc jockey to play the same song he's going to play in the next hour anyway.  Or a radio station poll that might pull in 10,000 votes over the course of a couple of weeks so they can put together a special countdown weekend.

No ... THIS list was made up by the people ... the classic rock music fans ... the ones who LOVE the genre and grew up with this music ... speaking out to voice their favorites.  Thousands and thousands and thousands participated, without any restrictions as to what they could or couldn't nominate.  If you felt it belonged, it made the final ballot.  (The elimination process came later ... read on!)  In the end, over ONE MILLION VOTES were tabulated in order to compile these final results.

Where Will We Go From Here?
The hope is that as word spreads about the tremendous undertaking we've achieved, Classic Rock Radio will begin to take notice and open up their eyes and ears ... and play lists (!) ... and start to feature more and more of these long forgotten and overlooked tracks that have fallen by the wayside over the years.  (Sadly, we found that they have also fallen off the radar of many of the classic rock music fans out there, too, simply due to lack airplay over time.)

The reality is that radio is not going to change on its own.  Everybody associated with the genre believes that they're doing everything right ... by playing the exact same songs on every classic rock radio station across the country.  They want radio to sound "familiar," no matter where you go ... so they all offer up the same menu.  They'll tell you that listeners just don't tune in and listen all that long ... and when they do, they want to hear the songs most familiar to them ... they want to hear their favorites.  (That's why you'll hear the same Bon Jovi song four times a day ... to make sure every waking audience hears it.)

But the truth is, people actually DO remember ... the REAL fans want and expect more from a radio station ... and maybe if radio OFFERED more, more people would tune in ... and listen longer ... which means more advertising dollars for the station.  (It also breaks the cookie-cutter mold and allows YOUR station to stand out from the rest of the crowd ... because right now when you turn on the radio and hear what they're playing, the feeling is that you could have the dial set to any one of half a dozen different channels broadcasting in your area ... because they're all playing essentially the same music.)  It just doesn't seem right that everybody listening out there has a FAR more extensive music library than the station you're listening to!

So as you see the list unfold each day, you need to call and email your favorite classic rock stations and let them know some of the music that you want to hear that they're not playing.  Refer them to our list if you like.  We spent several MONTHS tabulating these results and I'll put them up against any other lists out there ... because THIS list expresses the true feelings of the listening audience ... some one million strong.

We've seen some of the other lists out there ... Rolling Stone Magazine listed their Top 500 Most Essential Songs of the Rock Era and placed Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" at the top of their list.  Ultimate Classic Rock runs some type of new list several times a week.  Their Ultimate Classic Rock Countdown put Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion" at #1.  

During the course of our research, we monitored 30 different classic rock stations across the country, recording their daily airplay logs.  Eight of those stations offered up Memorial Day 500 Countdowns ... and all eight of them came up with a different #1 song ... everything from "Layla" to "Gimme Shelter" to "Stairway To Heaven" ... all of the usual suspects.  Three of those eight stations had a Queen song at #1 ... but all three listed a different title by the group:  "Bohemian Rhapsody," "Another One Bites The Dust" and "We Will Rock You / We Are The Champions."

Lynyrd Skynyrd has topped lists with both "Free Bird" and "Sweet Home Alabama" ... so has Bruce Springsteen with "Born To Run," Led Zeppelin with "Kashmir," "Light My Fire" by The Doors and Jimi Hendrix with "All Along The Watchtower."

You'll find ALL of these songs in the Top 50 of our countdown, too ... as they should be ... because they truly are "fan favorites" and, as such, you'll hear each and every one of them every single day on the radio, too.  But there is just SO much more out there that deserves to heard as well.

What makes our list unique?
We think our readers will be far more fascinated with the BOTTOM 2500 than the Top 500 ... (because you can already predict what most of those are going to be) ... it's all of these great OTHER songs that we all still love but rarely get to hear anymore that are going to make THIS list stand out from all the others circulating out there ... and let me tell you, you're going to find some pretty fascinating gems spread throughout the entire countdown.  (In fact, classic rock radio in general may be QUITE surprised to see how low some of there so-called "tried and true" favorites placed on the list, despite all of their "extensive research" to the contrary.  OUR research comes from the fans and listeners themselves. Want to know what they REALLY want to hear?  Then keep tabs on this list ... it just may revolutionize Classic Rock Radio!)  
Don't get me wrong ... you'll still want to stick around for The Top 500, too ... if only to find out what order they all finished in ... but it's taking in the WHOLE list that'll make this a unique listening experience.

Some observations and things we learned along the way ...
Classic Rock music is EVERYWHERE ... no matter where you turn, you hear it ... on the radio, in movies, in television ads and TV shows ... walk into a store, a supermarket, an auto shop, a car dealership, a pizza parlor ... it literally surrounds you nonstop, no matter where you go.  Programmers and marketing people have found it to be the perfect backdrop because we've all been exposed to it.  Classic Rock isn't going anywhere ... so why not EXPAND the arena by playing some of these tried-and-true, well-loved classics?  Your audience is already there ... why not blow them away with a little depth and variety?

That being said, it became almost obsessive while I was compiling the airplay lists ... every song I heard on the radio had to be noted ... every tv commercial ... the background music in every television drama ... classic rock music used to promote new movie releases ... it was getting to the point where I started to feel like I couldn't even enjoy the music anymore ... because my mission in life was suddenly to document it ... it took away from my love of this music and it bothered me that I couldn't just listen to it for my own enjoyment anymore ... if it was on, I had to be compiling the results of the airplay.  (It's kind alike being asked to be the scorekeeper at your kid's basketball game ... yeah, it's a great honor ... but now your focus is 100% on the result of every play, making it virtually impossible to actually enjoy the game, much less your kid's performance.)  Even now, after those 100 days of intensive listening are over, I still find myself scrambling for a pen to write down something completely off that charts that I'll hear somebody play ... even though the polls have alrady been closed for over a month!  It's almost an "atta boy" reaction to the jock or station that stepped outside the box for a minute to give us something different.  (Seriously, sometimes it feels like I've been going thru classic rock withdrawal!!)  As such, it'll be nice to watch this countdown unfold right along with you ... and enjoy hearing the results once and for all in the context of how this music deserves to be heard.

We also learned that voters love the group Love ... and when is the last time you've heard ANYTHING by Love played on the radio?  (While I've personally never been a fan, the voters have spoken, awarding Love EIGHT song title nominations, five of which made the final countdown.  (The general consensus seems to be that Love could have been The Doors ... were it not, of course for The Doors!)

We mentioned early on in this process that the lines have become quite blurred when it comes to differentiating between Classic Rock and Soft / Middle-Of-The- Road Rock these days.  It's not at all uncommon anymore to hear artists like John Mellencamp, Bob Seger, Queen, Bon Jovi, Blondie, Heart, Elton John, Tom Petty and Journey on the Adult Contemporary stations these days.  (Believe it or not, I've even heard AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" on one not that long ago!) 

But while the Soft Rock market has embraced this opportunity to expand their own playlists, Classic Rock has been slower to come around and incorporate some of the soft rock / yacht rock songs and artists in their universe.  But, as we said earlier, we all grew up being exposed to ALL of this music ... and the fans have spoken and they're telling us that they LOVE the mix of these two genres ... that's why you'll see tracks listed by The Little River Band and Ambrosia and America on the list ... because it all fits.  (Maybe we've all just mellowed with age a little bit as we've all grown older.)  Sure, we still want to rock out and play air guitar when we hear something like "Pour Some Sugar On Me" or "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake ... but we can also "cuddle and smooch" when "How Much I Feel" by Ambrosia comes on the radio!

Classic Rock Music Fans also believe that some of the "roots rock" artists should be included in radio airplay from time to time ... no, not heavy rotation, but something to recognize the contribution of these tracks to the growth and development of rock and roll music in general.  As such, you'll find tracks sprinkled throughout the countdown by artists like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bill Haley (how can you NOT feature "Rock Around The Clock" once in a while!) and a few others.  Surprisingly, one of the artists who fell out of favor was Buddy Holly, who had five songs nominated.  NONE of his hits made The Top 3333 ... but you WILL find a few songs WRITTEN by Buddy Holly but recorded by other artists.  I can live with that because he's at least getting SOME representation for his contribution to the evolution of rock.  (And think about how long these songs have stood the test of time!!!)  

Remember that scene in "The Full Monty" when all of the would-be strippers are waiting to collect their job assignments and unemployment checks ... and the Donna Summer song "Hot Stuff" comes on and they all start to move and groove, bump and grind to the music?  It's an absolutely CLASSIC movie scene that makes me smile each and every time I see it.

Well, I experienced something very similar while compiling our list.

I had to wait in a shipping department to pick up a package a couple of months ago.  Naturally, they had classic rock music playing in the background.  (I told you it was EVERYWHERE!!!)

All of a sudden "China Grove" by The Doobie Brothers came on ... and one by one, each of the employees started to react to the music at their desks ... tapping it out with a pencil, doing the air guitar chord riffs or just shaking a shoulder in time to the music.  Soon everybody waiting in line started to pick up on the groove.  It was downright infectious!  THAT is the power of this music ... and THAT is why it will never die.

By far, the ONE song that got the MOST respect the voters as a forgotten track was "Stealin'" by Uriah Heep.  This is a GREAT song ... and they used to play the hell out of it ... but you rarely hear it anymore.  We got more mail about this one song than any others.  If, when all is said and done, no other lesson is learned during this entire process, Classic Rock should be playing this song.  (Ironically, we heard it featured recently in that God-Awful HBO Series "The Righteous Gemstones" ... as bad as the program was, the song still sounded AMAZING playing in the background of one of the early scenes.)

The single greatest discovery for me while putting all of this together?  Hands down, it has to be the Disturbed version of Paul Simon's "The Sound Of Silence."  I had never heard this version before (and never particularly cared for this tune) ... but the first time I heard it by Disturbed, it literally went right through me.  It was absolutely electrifying.  I had to listen to it again and again.  And the video is every bit as powerful.  (If you haven't seen it, check it out on YouTube ... and then do yourself a favor and watch their live performance on Conan, too.  It is impossible to watch either of these clips and not be moved ... and changed ... forever.)

Which artists best epitomize Classic Rock?  
Led Zeppelin?  The Who?  AC/DC?  Pink Floyd?  Queen?  
The Eagles?  Bob Seger?  Steve Miller?  Aerosmith?  
Jimi Hendrix?  Van Halen?  The Boss?  

All good and worthy choices ... but what we found is that NOBODY has the clout of The Rolling Stones.

The original Bad Boys of Rock And Roll placed 56 songs on the final countdown ... but FIVE of these songs made The Top 13!!!  (Now that's unheard of!!!  Nearly 40% of the biggest votes went to Mick, Keith and Company.)  Can you figure out what they were?  And in what order they finished?

Now to be fair, Queen, The Beatles and Lynyrd Skynyrd each had two tracks in The Top 20 ... and Queen just missed having a third, coming in at #21 with "Somebody To Love."  Meanwhile, Aerosmith, The Who and Led Zeppelin just missed scoring two Top 20 Choices.

The Harsh Realities:
All along we were hoping that we could get SOME radio station to play the list.  Now I never believed for a minute that somebody would play all 3333 ... but, believe it or not, we DID discuss that possibility with a couple of different radio outlets.  (In the end, we found a couple of stations willing to play at least a PORTION of the list.  We are still in the process of determining what that portion may be ... but at the very least I would think that a Top 100 Countdown may be forthcoming ... and possibly even a Top 500 and/or Top 1000 ... stay tuned to these pages for more information as it develops.)  

We also never got the support we needed and had hoped for from some of the other big players out there ... but seriously, did anyone REALLY think that Rolling Stone Magazine would publicize OUR list and OUR findings when they've already published their own version of "the best of the best"???  No WAY they're going to take away from their own findings to announce our far more accurate results!

Likewise, the thirty radio stations that we monitored aren't likely to feature our list either ... as it conflicts with their own playlists as dictated ... but hopefully they will steer listeners toward it so they can see the results for themselves ... and eventually start playing more and more of our "suggestions" as time goes on.  (No, it won't happen overnight ... but I'm willing to bet you that if we're going to reveal 50 songs a day, ANY radio station out there will be easily able to find two or three songs to slip in as "WOW!" surprises during their 24 hour broadcast day!)  Over the course of the next six months, I believe you will start to hear classic rock radio begin to change for the better ... and I believe these results will have played some small part in that.  So pat yourselves on the shoulder ... because we couldn't have done it without your support.

We heard from NINE disc jockeys or program directors as a result of this research, NONE of whom were willing to speak on the record ... and would only offer advice, opinion and insight if we assured them that we would maintain their privacy.  

Every one of them ... nine out of nine ... said that they wished THEIR station played more variety ... but understood the necessity of drawing the right demographic to the station for advertising purposes.  They were AMAZED by some of the suggestions they saw on our daily ballots ... and agreed that featuring some of these tracks would spice up the listening experience not only for their listeners but for the jocks themselves, who have to play the same 2-300 songs day after day after day.  (One jock went so far as to say "If ANYONE out there still believes for a minute that the jocks pick the music, they are sadly out of touch with reality.")  Nearly all maintained that the jocks have absolutely NO input into what gets played ... and again hid behind the "stock" excuse that "radio is a business ... designed to make money ... and people want to tune in and hear their absolute favorites no matter what time of day they turn us on."  But most of them ALSO agreed that if listeners started to make a point of requesting more of this great, forgotten music, some of it may find its way back on to the radio again ... but it's up to us to make that happen ... we've gotta push for it.  (And let's face it ... once a couple of the stations start to play more of this stuff, the others will follow suit, because they all copy each other anyway!  I still look at that as a "win" if the listener gets more variety and less repetition.)  There are SO many ways that some of this music can be incorporated into the play lists ... special features like The Drive's A to Z ... Two For Tuesday ... Deep Tracks and "Four Play" Weekends.  Think about that for a second ... oh my God, radio might actually get INTERESTING again!!!

Those same jocks acknowledged what a hard sell I had ahead of myself trying to push for some of the songs that were nominated.  If I spent the next year trying to get radio to play the bulk of the music on our list, I might have a 20% chance of getting them to do so, once a few other stations took the gamble and proved that the new variety was working.  That being said, if I worked on this project for the next TEN years, nothing I could do would get stations to play tracks like "Wichita Lineman" and "To Sir, With Love," both of which earned quite a few votes (hundreds in fact), because these simply aren't Classic Rock Tracks.  (And including them puts the credibility of our list at risk.)  I have to admit that I agree wholeheartedly with this assessment.  

So, as with ALL things in life, certain concessions had to be made.  Upon advisement and after careful consideration, a number of songs were eliminated from the list in order to present the best possible mix of classic rock music. This includes a few high-scoring tracks ... and yes, even the highly controversial late inclusion of "Runaway" by Del Shannon!

It also meant the elimination of some of the "newer" tracks that were earning votes. ALL songs by Train, for example, were cut from the list (although I firmly believe that 20 years from now "Hey Soul Sister" will still be one of the most-played track on the radio.)  I also had to bite the bullet and see tracks like "Somebody That I Used To Know" by Goyte, "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None The Richer, "Hey There Delilah" by The Plain White T's and "How To Save A Life" by The Fray eliminated from the list, even though I firmly believe that in order for classic rock radio to grow, it has to start incorporating more "future classics" into the mix.  A station like Chicago's WXRT can play Portugal The Man's "Feel It Still" (which earned over 300 votes, on par with "The Wind Cries Mary" and "Thunder Road") side by side with Janis Joplin and The Doors and get away with it under the banner of "Chicago's Finest Rock."  I believe that ALL of these tracks will survive by way of Classic Rock Radio, once the genre expands its horizons a little bit.  

We know that this decision will upset some of our voters out there ... but it needed to be done to lend credibility to our findings.  (Consider it an "Executive Decision" under advisement from those who know what will ... and won't get played on classic rock radio.)  So while you won't see "Downtown" by Petula Clark on the final list, you WILL find several other songs that earned 33 votes or more that truly fit the Classic Rock genre and demographic.  This needed to be done in order to maintain the integrity of the list.  (That being said, you'll still find some surprises.)  Once we get the Classic Rock Countdown up and running, we will run The Top 100 Eliminated Tracks on the Forgotten Hits Website ... because they still deserve to be recognized and honored.  (This will also offer some very valuable insight to programmers working for non-classic rock stations as this establishes just how popular and well-loved some of these tracks are.)  If I get REAL ambitious, I may even include all of the titles that earned 33 points but didn't make the final cut off of the Top 3333!

The Last Word:
PLEASE help to spread the word about what we're doing here ... I can't even begin to add up the hundreds of hours I've invested in making sure this list represents the most DEFINITIVE ranking possible.  It truly is unlike any other Hit List ever published.  (One reader even suggested that I should submit our findings to The Guinness Book Of World Records!)
We have already heard from several artists, thanking us for putting together a list like this and thanking their fans for recognizing their body of work.  We expect to hear from quite a few more as the countdown goes on.
We also expect to hear from a good number of you folks out there as the list unfolds!
So as not to disturb the continuity of the countdown, we will send out Comment Pages by email from time to time during the course of this series.  These will act as the ONLY reminders to check the site ... we're leaving the rest up to you to make us part of your daily routine.  Please know that EVERY day the next batch of songs will be revealed ... so even if you can't check back each and every day to view the latest additions, the list will still be there for you to refer back to and catch up on.  (We've even posted random videos throughout the countdown to allow you to enjoy at least some sense of the countdown experience while digesting the results.  And you don't even have to leave the page to do so!)  [Of course if you DO decide to leave the page to venture over to YouTube to view some of the songs NOT featured on our site, be sure to come right back to check out the rest of the list!]

Meanwhile ...

THE COUNTDOWN CONTINUES!!!

Tomorrow ... beginning at 6 am Central Time ... and every day thereafter ... we will be counting down

THE TOP 3333 MOST ESSENTIAL 
CLASSIC ROCK SONGS OF ALL TIME!!!   

Don't miss a track!  Bookmark this site NOW and then send that link to everybody you know who would appreciate seeing a list like this.  The results are meant to be shared and enjoyed by Classic Rock Music Fans around the world!
kk
Kent Kotal
Forgotten Hits
Classic Rock Essentials

THE TOP TEN MOST ESSENTIAL CLASSIC ROCK SONGS OF ALL TIME (#4 - #1)

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