Which Rock Star Will Historians Remember?

[Matthew Fisher]

Anyway, I still say Little Richard.

Yes! It will have to be somebody from the rock and roll era of rock and roll, and who better than Little Richard?

 

[danomite64]

By the year 2112, all of what what we call modern music will have been abolished by the priests of the temples of Syrinx. To fill the emotional/spiritual void, billions of people flock to the teachings of L. Ron Hoover, founder of the Church of Appliantology. Fourth world countries, on the other hand, were spared from all this turmoil, and still listen to Weird Al Yankovich music played on their kerosene- powered turntables.

 

[Keyser Soze]

Chuck Berry. Hail, Hail Rock 'n' Roll.

 

[Cat-A-Tonic]

Anyone seen Chuck play recently?....A bit off topic but I'm interested to hear if he's still "got it"....

I saw him play about 9 years ago and he was doing alright then.
Doesn't duck walk anymore though.
His daughter and son played with his band too.
Blueberry Hill, St. Louis ^_^

I saw Link Wray in St.Louis before he passed away.
He is another important name in Rock'n'Roll history.

 

[Pyrat]

Don't think of Fela as a ROCK star.....A star of some kind for sure though!....

Yeah...I decided "rock star" might mean somethin' diff'ernt in the fUtUre~

 

[lbbc]

I would say:
Elvis Presley
Chuck Berry
The Beatles
Black Sabbath
Led Zeppelin
Eric Clapton
In that order chronologically and for their contributions to the genre of Rock n Roll

 

[Hevy T]

Hendrix

 

[Gaolee]

tl;dr

In the 25th century, nobody will remember rock and roll. That's why it's fun to play now. Irrelevance is bliss.

 

[GaryCorby]

For all we know ... Mozart and Hayden could be the only two that their music sheet never been destroyed in fire and so completely ereased them from our history.

So you're not a fan of classical music, I guess. There are at least 300 composers active in the 1700s for whom there is known work. If you think Mozart and Haydn are the only two whose work survives then that precisely proves my point!

 

[Blake Bass]

Beatles and Elvis…

 

[gjohnson441496]

Prince - 300 years from now they'll only be halfway through his music vault

 

[Mike Sorr]

Selena Gomez, no question about it. But that's only because she'll be president in about twenty years.

 

[REMBO]

Jimi Hendrix!

 

[foolforthecity]

Kim Jong IL? I read that he invented rock.

That was Al Gore, shortly before his Internet work

 

[Fat Freddy]

Yeah...I decided "rock star" might mean somethin' diff'ernt in the fUtUre~

I see tumbleweeds.....

 

[EVerderame]

Bob Grullis, the godfather of rock'n'roll (don't look for him in google, he is not born yet)

 

[Lee Moses]

It's Elvis and I don't think its even close.

This. Whether or not Elvis was "out of the game" by 1973, as the writer asserts, rock and roll had been pretty well defined by then. And Elvis helped define it for more people than anybody.

The Beatles also sold a ton of records, but they are not as definitively "rock and roll." Their music went in several different directions. They even denied that they were rock and roll, at least in the early days.

 

[foolforthecity]

The Stones will probably still be playing in 300 yrs.....So I vote for them...

Agreed. The Stones will indeed still be trying to play in 300 years.

 

[Blueinred]

Very fun and interesting topic for speculation. I could write pages on it, too. But, not today. It, indeed, can only be speculation for all the obvious and non obvious (future unknown) reasons. I think I might argue that the scholars 300 years from now would call the one true "rock star" of the entire genre after almost 70 years ...................the electric guitar.

It's the most common denominator of all.

 

[-Asdfgh-]

Yeah, but let's be realistic........Classical music is one GIANT F'ING cover band, and they don't even play the stuff on instruments that are correct era! I don't mean old instruments, I mean instruments that were popular but hadn't had their range set in stone, some are wildly different now, compared to then. Heck the current conductors on't even respect the nuanced number of instrument the pieces were written for originally.

Don't get me wrong but Zappa diagnosed the problem years ago. Very few can name a current era classical composer. Most of the set lists for a symphony are limited to about 100 tunes with little or no new music as the orchestras are afraid to introduce new composers to an audience that shows little interest, hence, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and the rest of the Golden Oldies.

Sort of pity symphonies as they now aspire to playing a particular piece like some other orchestra that did a version that was memorable as opposed to authentic.

Imagine 100 years from now someone preferring ABC's version of Abbey Road over XYZ's rendition and somehow the version done by George, Paul, John, Ringo.

Some orchestras do newer stuff... Birtwhistle, McMillan, Tavener, Part, very occasionally Nyman etc. Because of a classical bias maybe Killing Joke will be remembered, but mostly because Jaz Coleman is also composer in residence for a Prague based orchestra.