Artist	Song
Muddy Waters	The Blues Had a Baby and They Called It Rock and Roll
Richard Hell and the Voidoids	Blank Generation
Iggy Pop	Lust For Life
X-Ray Spex	I Am A Cliche
The Avengers	We Are the One
Dead Boys	Sonic Reducer
Sex Pistols	God Save the Queen
The Ramones	Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment
Ultravox	Young Savage
The Adverts	Gary Gilmore's Eyes
Television	Friction
Steely Dan	Josie
Ian Dury	Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll
Giorgio Moroder	I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone
Marvin Gaye	Got to Give It Up (Part 1)
The Commodores	Brick House
Johnny "Guitar" Watson	A Real Mother For Ya
Althea & Donna	Uptown Top Ranking
Bob Marley & the Wailers	The Heathen
Fleetwood Mac	Gold Dust Woman
David Bowie	Heroes

Comment:

In his book "Flowers in the Dustbin" rock critic James Miller posited (albeit more out of exclusion than anything) that rock, for all intents and purposes, died in 1977- the year of Elvis' death and the Sex Pistols' rise to fame/infamy. It also happens to be the year I was born, so I found myself horrified and depressed to learn that there had been and never would be any decent rock music in my lifetime. "Damn, that sucks," I thought, then shrugged and gave a casual glance at my CD collection.
Then I got an idea.
25 CDs, ranging from 1977 to 2001, detailing (more or less) a cross-section of some of the most notable tracks to arise in the period spanning from Carter's inaguration through the end of this year. Just to make it a bit trickier, I'd narrow it down to one song per artist, thus spurring internal debates aplenty ("Janie Jones" or "Rock the Casbah"? "Paid in Full" or "Microphone Fiend"? "Loser" or "Devil's Haircut"? Final decision: "The Card Cheat", "Follow the Leader" and "Pay No Mind" respectively- well, it was kinda hard to choose). And just to make things more interesting, I'd organize it so that on one CD you could hear both sludgy UK punk rock and bass-heavy disco-funk; churning feedback-laden college rock and 808-rocking old school hip-hop; tranced-out techno and retro-garage sleaze. This oughta be an interesting undertaking. As of now it is by no means complete, but I guess I've gotta start somewhere so here's 1977 for ya. Some now-legendary pioneering punk tracks, some fun throwaway disco cuts and a blues legend thrown in for perspective and/or flavor. The blues had a baby and called it rock and roll... let's find out what their grandson's gonna turn out to be.

UPDATE, 12-18-02: I've decided to dust off this series and fiddle a bit with the tracklisting, as well as adding new stuff here and there. The flow seems a lot smoother now, and the addition of Althea & Donna and Giorgio Moroder seems long overdue now.

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