Top Ten Greatest Rock and Roll Artists

Top Ten Greatest Rock and Roll Artists by Roxanne McDonald

Just as fitting only ten onto the list of greatest albums of all time was a daunting, restrictive task, so counting down the top ten best rock and roll stars becomes a super jam of a challenge.

But Vh1 did it (well, the top 100 greatest list)…by polling Vh1 viewers/listeners, and Rock on the Net (affiliated) followed up that with a separate survey.

Here are the first ten of 100 of their respective lists, followed by my pitiful attempts to do my own survey for one:

Vh1 Top Ten Greatest Rock and Roll Artists, with Rock on the Net Results (voters who agree, in brackets)

1. Beatles [1]
2. Rolling Stones [9]
3. Jimi Hendrix [7]
4. Led Zeppelin [5]
5. Bob Dylan [13]
6. James Brown [46]
7. David Bowie [14]
8. Elvis Presley [3]
9. The Who [90]
10. The Police [34]

My Picks
1. Jimi Hendrix
2. Bob Dylan
3. Aerosmith (#79 on Vh1 list)
4. Black Sabbath (only with Ozzy) (not on Vh1 list!)
5. Creedence (#47 on Vh1 list)/Lynnard Skynnard (tied for me)
6. Prince (#18 on Vh1 list)/Patti Smith (not on Vh1 list)
7. Tom Waits (#90 on Vh1 list)/Lou Reed (with Velvet Underground, #74 on Vh1 list)/J.J. Cale (not on list)
8. Pink Floyd (#19 on Vh1 list)/Rolling Stones
9. Led Zepplin/The Beatles/The BeeGees (#76 on Vh1 list)
10. Elvis Costello (# 38 on Vh1 list)/Leonard Cohen/Tom Rush (latter two not on list)

Yes, I have left off some amazing rockers. [This was way harder than I anticipated.] But that’s my prerogative. And I cheated, too, I guess. Ya think I could have made the list a top twenty, then, huh?

And as far as criteria, hum, I chose to go with personal auditory (and, well, visual, too, I suppose, as looking at these guys is/was …uhhhhhhhh) aesthetics, of course, rather than best-selling—though the latter is inextricably involved in the former, I know. I get that.
I also went with musical technique in tandem with lyrical appeal…again, for me. So I include a couple of recording artists you might not believe belong in the “Rock” genre category. Oh, well.

I can’t imagine what I could do with or to a top ten blues artists list.

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