Rantings Of A Mad Rodent

I love how my brothers and sisters are quick to yell, "We created that!", whenever someone plays a modern rock song. True, we created rock n roll, but not everything that rock n roll encompasses. Let's break it down, shall we? There are 3 main people that get credited with rock n roll's creation, depending on who you ask. They are saxophonist Louis Jordan, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard. Elvis Presley, "The King of Rock n Roll", always gave Fats Domino the credit. For the record, Elvis hated being called "The King of Rock n Roll". He always felt that that title belonged to Fats Domino, but I digress. To me, that's where our "creating rock n roll" stops. Alot of hard rock bands, like AC/DC, Led Zepplin, and the Rolling Stones, based alot of their early tunes around the blues, another one of "our creations". However; again, that too, is where it ends for "us", their earlier tunes.

Take Led Zepplin for instance, their songs "Rock N Roll" and "Dazed and Confused" were based on the old timey rock n roll and blues that blacks are credited with creating, but "Ocean" and "Kashmir" were not. Hell, "Kashmir" was built on a Middle Eastern groove. We can't take credit for that, but many of us still try. Some will listen to a fuzzed out heavy metal or hard rock tune and say, "We created all of that!". No, "we" didn't. Dave Davies of the Kinks busted the cone on his amp's speaker and turned up the volume to get that deep distortion and fuzz effect. That had absolutely nothing to do with Chuck Berry's creation. Tommi Iommi of Black Sabbath was among the first to detune his guitar to C# to get that "heavy metal" sound, and along with Led Zep's Jimmy Page, introduced the modern heavy guitar riff. Again, that had absolutely nothing to do with what Little Richard, Fats Domino, or Louis Jordan were doing or did.

For those that argue that all rock is based around the blues, try this on for size: Judas Priest is widely recognized as one of the first heavy metal bands. True, most rock is based on blues, but not heavy metal. In order to achieve their much heavier sound, which led to most modern day rock and metal, Judas Priest shed their blues influence altogether. We can't take credit for that. Sorry. Tommi Iommi and Dave Davies deserve more credit for Metallica's "Enter Sandman" than Fats Domino does. Kansas, Yes, Rush, and most of the other bands in the Prog Rock movement, built their main riffs around classical music. Chuck Berry wasn't doing that. We can take credit for the genre, but not the genres within the genre. Sure, we created "Rock Around the Clock", but not "Smells Like Teen Spirit". "Rollover Beethoven"?, yes, "Purple Haze"?, no.

True, the Wright Brothers taking that leap off of that hill in 1903, eventually led up to the development of the Stealth Bomber, but to say that the Wright Brothers invented the Stealth Bomber is laughable. That's like giving Henry Ford, who's introduction of the Model T was a major mark in automotive history, credit for the Porsche 911 Turbo. I know my brothers and sisters love to trumpet our creation of rock music, but those claims have limits, and I think it's time that we recognized those limits. Feel free to argue amongst yourselves.