Rock of Ages

“Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landside… No escape from reality…” how many of you have heard this lyrics? Thinking they are nothing but nonsense and meaningless words, chosen randomly just to fit on a quite strange song. I used to think that too, ignoring the majestic piece of art hidden in those wonderful musical poem. Actually, it is the story of a boy whose girlfriend left him for some other guy. He kills him, and now the guy’s gang is looking for him to kill him. He goes to say goodbye to his mom. After the gang finds him, he begs, but they won’t let him go, so he kills them all. But still, he knows he’ll have to spend the rest of his life as a fugitive so he needs to “get right out of here”, and even though he came alive, he know he’ll never be able to see his mother again. What a nonsense right? And it’s just a little taste of what the rock is, and why it is the most transcendental, influential, important and magnificent music gender ever.

Since the beginning of modern history music have been one of the bases of society, being influenced by people and vice versa. But by de decade of the 1950’s music evolve drastically, giving place to the first stage of rock and roll, which will evolve year by year, being every stage as great and influential as the last one. “You ain’t nothing but a hound dog…” maybe old but every single one remembers the iconic lyrics, rhythms and moves of “The King” Elvis Presley, being the main representing of the first generation of rock.

If there are two bands that have marked an age and are and will be always remembered are “The Beatles” with songs like “Here Comes the Sun” and Let it Be” and “The Rolling Stones” with the iconic “Satisfaction” and the unbelievable moves of the great one and only Mike Jagger. This two marked the bases in the 60’s of what will later be known as Classic Rock. Closing this decade with the greatness of “Jimi Hendrix”, “Led Zeppelin” and “The Who”, among lots of others, giving place for the 70’s, where the appearance of bands like “Queen”, “Aerosmith”, “Kiss”, “Deep Purple”, “Pink Floy”, “Scorpions”, etc. marked a whole new era with the beginning of the Classic Rock, from which are derived genders like Soft Rock, Hard Rock, Progressive Rock and Indi, and with the appearance of “Black Sabbath” also the Heavy Metal was born.

This era of Classic Rock continued through the 80’s, when the rock turned into a little bit harder style or level, as “AC/DC”, Black Sabbath’s former singer, “Ozzy Osbourne” now as a solo, “Iron Madden”, “Quiet Riot”, “Twisted Sister” among many others appeared and took a huge popularity leap, but also the Soft Rock  continued strong with the still popular bands formed back in the 70’s and the newborn bands like “Bon Jovi” and “Journey”, two of the most remembered rock bands now a days, with songs like “Living on a Prayer” or “It’s my Life” from the first and “Don’t Stop Believing” and “Anyway You Want It” from the second one.

Music changes life, it makes the world the place it is, making us sometimes forget about the bad and remember or enjoying the good, and sometimes making us conscious about the bad in order to making us wanting to change that bad into good. “I don’t need your civil war…” maybe one of the greatest lyrics I’ve ever heard about making us conscious of the insanity of war and how the government send us to fight and die their wars while we think we’re protecting our country, when we are not. “Welcome to the jungle, we have fun and games, we’ve got everything you want, honey we know the names…” one of my favorites, an energetic, enthusiastic and moved song that makes wanna dance and sing and scream  and jump all around the place forgetting about anything but the moment. “Nothing lasts forever, even cold November rain” a melancholic song that makes us remember the real purpose in life which is love, and having someone to make us company, but with energetic and loud peaks like the song's guitar solo that makes us feel this bunch of mixed emotions of joy and nostalgia, madness and love, happiness and sadness that make us just love the song, what it represents and how it makes us fell. All these is what music can make, and how many kind of emotions coming out of many kind of songs can a single band  like “Guns and Roses” can create.

The ages of rock continue through the 90’s, 2000’s and the actual days, evolving year by year, from “Metallica” and “Nirvana”, “Coldplay”, “Radiohead” and “U2” to “Linkin’ Park”, “Muse”, “30 Seconds to Mars”, “Nickelback”, “Green Day” and “Paramore”, until what we have today like “Imagine Dragons” and “Fall Out Boy”. And even when Rock is no more the most popular gender, it’ll be always remembered as the greatest one of all time, the one who have survived through decades, since the late 40’s until today, even when having to share the spotlight with Disco and years later with Pop, Rock stood firmly as the dominant music style it was, and I’m sure it will be again.