The Mercy Side: The Rise and Fall of Guitar Hero (Part 1)

Hey there, welcome to a three part homage to what I call The Rise and Fall of Guitar Hero. Today I’ll talk about The Rise of Guitar Hero, going through the first part of its history. I’ll talk about the series, the games, and my feelings on them as we go along. Tomorrow, part 2, is going to about The Fall of Guitar Hero, where I talk of its decline, as well as the games and my feelings that contributed to its demise. Part 3 will be put up on Wednesday, where I’ll be posting a Mixtape of songs that are my favourites to play from each game in the series.

The Guitar Hero series was one of my favourite game series of all time and in its peak, was extremely popular and has revived interest in many rock bands of the past. Activision claimed the third game in the series was the first title in the history of video gaming to hit $1 billion in sales, which shows you the power the game had at one time.

Guitar Hero first started off as a vision from a company called RedOctane, who saw potential in an earlier game series called GuitarFreaks, which had relative success in Japan. Seeing potential in the series, they decided to create their own game with their own format, hoping for success in the States. They asked Harmonix, a game development company who have created other music games such as Amplitude and Frequency, to moderate success. An agreement was made between the two to produce this game series.

The idea was to have a guitar controller to replace the control pad. This guitar controller would, naturally, be in the shape of a guitar. Where the frets of a genuine guitar would be, were five large plastic buttons. These ‘frets’ were colour coded; green, red, yellow, blue, and orange. On the base of the guitar was a strum bar that could be lifted up and down, and a whammy bar. The concept of the gameplay was for the respective colours of the frets would represent different notes in the sound of a guitar, and on the television screen, when you would see your respective coloured fret, you would hold down the colour of the fret, and strum in motion with the timing. Getting the timing with ten notes in succession would then double all your points. Getting twenty notes in succession tripled your points, and thirty notes quadrupled your points. That is the basic concept of Guitar Hero, arguably much easier than playing a guitar itself, which gave it access to many people of varying skill levels.

The original Guitar Hero controller.

There are other gameplay elements as well. If you had a long note in a song (like, in the beginning of “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath), you would simply hold down the respective coloured fret while the note is being played. You could play chords, simply by holding two fret buttons at the same time. Hammer ons and pull-offs were possible by pressing a series of frets in quick succession to a certain section of a song. At particular segments in a song, certain notes would have a white silhouette around them, and playing these notes in succession gave you an ability called “star power”. Gathering large amounts star power was fundamental in getting a high score in the game. To use star power, you have to store enough of it first, and then, then you lift the actual guitar controller ninety degrees upwards (or pressing the ‘select’ button on the controller itself), and all the notes would turn a glowing blue colour. When star power is activated, all notes count for twice the score as before. So if you hit over thirty notes in succession, you would have a quadrupled points multiplier; but with star power, those points would be doubled to eight times the original points. The whammy bar had its use too; if you were in a series of notes contending for star power, if any of those notes were long, you could use your whammy bar to start developing star power on the cuff.

Naturally with star power and a points multiplier, this game was very good at making it competitive to get the highest score. High scores in video games took a turn by the mid-nineties, not many games used high score boards, or used point systems. It wasn’t really until the mid naught, when leaderboards on Xbox Live and the PS3 were developed to compare your score to other people around the world when the point system gained a second wind. While Guitar Hero was released just before the seventh generation consoles became official, this really game did make it competitive again to compare your scores with other friends. Another addition is the rating of songs out of five stars, where successfully playing a song got you three stars, but hitting more notes and getting multipliers gave you a better chance of a four or five star rating.

As the original game didn’t have any licences to use master copies of any songs, they created cover versions for all the songs on the game. So with the guitar sorted, the gameplay elements created and the cover versions developed, everything was rocking to get the game released. All that was left really was to develop characters that the player could choose from. It was important that these characters were varied, and covered many genres of rock and metal, as there are so many subgenres of music that could be associated with the game. For instance, for ‘metalheads’, Axel Steel was created, a very large man with really big shoulders and long brown hair. In contrast, Johnny Napalm was designed with punks in mind; he was a tall and slim topless man with a Mohawk. One of the female characters was Pandora, a slim girl with dyed light blue hair and was appealing for people into the gothic fashion, and genres associated with that movement.

Johnny Napalm, the 'punk' character.

Everything was set! They released the game in the States on November 8^th, 2005, and was met with huge critical acclaim. No one expected it to be the hit it was, with the soundtrack of cover versions praised and the guitar controller. The original Guitar Hero controller was modelled after the Gibson SG, a guitar used by Eric Clapton, The Edge, Dave Grohl, George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix, James Hetfield, Tony Iommi, Keith Richards amongst others. For me personally, the best thing about Guitar Hero was the fantastic effort put into the order of the songs. The idea was that you would have five tracks, and if you successfully play through them all, you’d unlock five more tracks. The songs got more and more difficult as the game went on. This is a formula used in most of the games, but no game has been more successful at making the learning curve arced to precision as the original game. Starting with “I Love Rock and Roll” by Joan Jett and finishing with “Bark at the Moon”, the songs are for the most part simple yet great tracks that begin to take a difficult turn towards the middle, and at the end are songs with difficult riffs and guitar solos.

The game came out in the states in November ’05 and I caught wind of it around the turn of the year, when the game was starting to feature in many award listings. I completely forgot about it though as it wasn’t released in the UK yet. It wasn’t until around March time, when my local Game store had a playable demo. I gave “I Love Rock and Roll” a go and absolutely fell in love with the game. I HAD to have it. I found out when it was being released, which was April 7^th 2006, and got a copy not long after then. I was hooked. It was one of the most amazing video game experiences I ever had. Playing these awesome songs, learning new ones, getting better at playing the game, it was ecstasy. I managed to beat it on Easy within days. “Easy” mode only allows you to use the first three of the five frets. I went onto “Medium”, which made you use four of the five. I remember going all the way with ease again, until I got to the penultimate track, which was “Cowboys From Hell” by Pantera, an excellent song, and found it too difficult. After a lot of practicing I finally beat it, and moved onto “Hard” mode, which was the first time all five frets were to be used. The rest is history now.

The original Guitar Hero had some excellent cover versions in the game, as there was no rights to any master copies, you have to give a lot of credit to the team who made these songs their own. Some of the songs are a bit off, like the person doing Lemmy in “Ace of Spades” by Motorhead, but some of them are pretty damn good. The original “Guitar Hero” will always have a place in my heart, the makers of the Guitar Hero series have improved certain elements of the gameplay as the series has gone on but the original has developed a certain charm to it, and it’s a game that I’ll always stick on once in a while. If I were to review the original Guitar Hero it would get ****1/2 stars from me, as there were things that could have been improved, and were. Let’s move on.

Guitar Hero I has a charm no other game in the series has.

After the success of Guitar Hero, it was inevitable a sequel was to be made. And the team were straight on it, with Guitar Hero II being produced and released here in the UK seven months after the first, on November 24^th, 2006. I remember those months quite clearly. I remember being on MySpace on a Guitar Hero message board, and I, along with thousands of others, were excited to hear news on what songs were to be put on the sequel. We all made radical and personal suggestions in anticipation. Some songs were announced early, like “You Really Got Me” by Van Halen and “Freya” by The Sword. I remember “Misirlou” by Dick Dale being announced, and I marked out pretty bad. I’m not the biggest Dick Dale fan, or Pulp Fiction for that matter, but knowing such a complicated guitar track being put on the game was awesome. I remember not getting the game until probably Christmas, as I could afford it when it was released. In the month between then, I vividly remember going on YouTube to view how hard “Misirlou” was going to be and being in awe over how much strumming you would have to do on the harder difficulties. I also remember this time my local GameStation having the complete copy of Guitar Hero II on display for customers to try out, and actually unlocking a lot of the songs myself, just to play “Misirlou”. It was as difficult yet epic as I had imagined. Another highlight for me in the second entry in the series was one of the bonus tracks. I had never heard of Homestar Runner or Strong Bad, but playing “Trogdor” changed all that. I didn’t really understand why the song was funny or how I’d missed it, being someone that had been into this type of internet humour for some time, but doing some research on it not long after playing the song showed me the wonders of Strong Bad, and SBEmail. If you like internet humour then give SBEmail a go, Strong Bad is one of the funniest online villains of all time.

Anyway, Guitar Hero II picked up from what Guitar Hero started. In this game it was possible to play songs on bass guitar, and you could play co-op with a guitar and a bass player. One of the most important yet subtle changes to the game were the hammer ons and pull offs being much easier to do this time around. I’m not sure why it was difficult to do it in the original, but the change was thoroughly appreciated universally. Some new characters were added this time round, like Lars Umlaut, a Nordic death metal player, and Izzy Sparks, who represented the hair metal movement of the eighties. There were also three note chords, which were simply strummed by holding three of the five frets. Guitar Hero II’s soundtrack wasn’t as good as the original Guitar Hero’s, I mean there were some great additions like “Beast and the Harlot” by Avenged Sevenfold, “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd and “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath but on the whole there were a lot of songs that just didn’t feel belong, or weren’t as fun to play as others. In the original game there were songs that I wasn’t too fussed about, but they were fun to play and you could understand their inclusion into the game. Guitar Hero II didn’t always have songs that felt that way. Still, it was a solid effort, one I rate at ****1/4 stars.

The seventh generation consoles were starting to become the main force around this point, and if Guitar Hero was to keep remaining relevant they had to move onto the new consoles. Their first venture was to move Guitar Hero II to the Xbox 360, and they did this in April 2007. The PS3 and Wii don’t have this title in their collection. To mark this occasion, the makers made a special guitar controller for the Xbox 360 version, which was shaped like the Gibson Explorer, which was used by the likes of Clapton again, The Edge again, Billy Gibbons and Paul Stanley. This controller however was criticised as the base model was smaller than that of the PS2 controller, and was harder to hold therefore.

The Guitar Hero II controller, modelled after the Gibson Explorer.

In July 2007, the final Guitar Hero by Harmonix was released. This spinoff title, “Guitar Hero Rocks the 80s”, paid homage to many artists associated with the eighties. It was met with mixed reviews due to the soundtrack not being as good as the previous games, and also because it had fewer songs, yet was the same price as the other titles. I bought this myself, but soon sold it when I completed it, as it just wasn’t a very good set of songs, even from the eighties.

Some time between the release of “Guitar Hero II” and “Rocks the 80s”, Activision gained acquisition of RedOctane, and MTV Games bought Harmonix. They decided to release another sequel, and sought out Neversoft to develop it. The Guitar Hero series was an incredible mainstream machine by this point, and was on a high never experienced before. With the muscle of MTV, they were able to finally start using master recordings when available. With Neversoft they had an experienced and valued developer, who had given the world the Tony Hawks series. They built “Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock” from scratch, with their own designs and ideas behind the game.

The game was released in October in the US, and on November 23^rd, 2007 here in the UK. With a massive 73 playable tracks, it was a huge collection of songs. They had some great tracks on the set, and many of them were master recordings, like “One” by Metallica, “The Number of the Beast” by Iron Maiden and “Paint it Black” by The Rolling Stones. The game was a huge project, much bigger than the other two games, and it had the feeling of a gaming giant about it. Playing “Guitar Hero III” and “Guitar Hero” were similar experiences, naturally, but there was a different feeling this time round. Playing “Guitar Hero” back was like going back to an old house you moved away from, which was smaller than your current house. “Guitar Hero III” had many pros and many cons. On the whole, I’d say this is probably my favourite title in the series, just because there are so many excellent songs on the track listing. At this point I was able to play many songs on “Expert” and the third in the series is most certainly the most difficult game. They really put all their efforts to testing the hardcore Guitar Hero gamers to the max, “One”, “Number of the Beast” were incredibly difficult songs to play. But it was one of the additional features that made the game so difficult.

Slash makes an appearance in the 3rd game, he also featured heavily in the games marketing and artwork

The main inclusion for “Guitar Hero III” was the new battle feature, which was available in two-player as well as in the main storyline. In this game, the idea is that star power is replaced by battle power ups, which are used to hinder your opponents ability to play the song successfully, like crank the difficulty, or make one of the frets disabled temporarily. This battle feature, as mentioned earlier, is used in the main storyline. In the main storyline there are two famous musicians, Slash and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. You must ‘battle’ them to progress. At the end of the game the final battle commences, against Lou the Devil. This battle is incredibly difficult. The song, a metal cover version of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” (an incredible cover version may I add) is played, and playing against the Devil is just ridiculously difficult. It’s so difficult that personally, I’ve never beaten him on “Hard” mode; it’s only one of two songs that I can’t beat on that difficulty in the entire series. The other song? Oh, that’s in this game too. When you beat the game, you unlock the hardest song in all of the Guitar Hero games, “Through the Fire and Flames” by DragonForce. The song, when done on Expert, has nearly 4000 notes in it, and is eight minutes long. Having scoured YouTube, it looks like the first evidence of someone actually completing the song with 100% of the notes is in this video below, which was put on YouTube on June 3^rd, 2008, eight months after the game was released. The guy has a rival now, and the two have been trading records for the most points in the song. Me? As I said, I can’t even beat it on “Hard”!

So, one of the pros for the game is that it has a huge selection of great tracks. Another pro is that the design of the game and its characters was definitely an improvement. The cons? Well, I said there were many great tracks to play, but this title definitely has many duds as well. Because there are a total of 73 tracks, there are definitely songs on the game that haven’t really got much justice to be on there. None more so than “When You Were Young” by The Killers. I’m not saying it’s a bad song, but when this game is called “Guitar Hero”, and the entirety of the first verse has NO guitar in it at all, it shouldn’t be in this game. You’re just sitting (or standing there), for an entire verse, with no game play at all. It’s stupid. A similar experience also occurs in “Miss Murder” by AFI. These songs just shouldn’t be on this game. Another con was the difficulty of the game, as I said earlier, the game was definitely aimed at the more skilled Guitar Hero fans but they didn’t really make the game that accessible to new players. The beautiful learning curve of the original Guitar Hero was definitely gone by now. But the biggest con in this game is all the plugging and advertisement in the game. It takes about 90 seconds in the beginning of the game for all the companies, and there is a lot in the game too, none less than the stupid “bom chicka wow wow” girls. Nevertheless, this was a solid entry, and the pros definitely outweighed the cons, and I’d give the game ****1/2 stars again, as I said, I usually play this entry over any other.

I call this part The Rise of Guitar Hero. Tomorrow I’ll be back with The Fall of Guitar Hero. I hope you’ve enjoyed this half of the story and I hope you come back tomorrow with the second part. On Wednesday I’ll be putting up my favourite songs to play. I hope to see you back here tomorrow pronto! Have a good night.

Here's part two of "The Rise and Fall of Guitar Hero"!

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Noughtie: Most Important Artists

Overall Favourite Artists | Best of 2000 | Overall Least Favourite Artists | Best of 2001

Where Are They Now? | Best of 2002 | Best New Artists | Best of 2003 | My Guilty Pleasures
Best of 2004 | My Favourite Riffs | Best of 2005 | Underrated Artists | Best of 2006
 My Favourite Albums | Best of 2007 | Best Videos | Best of 2008 | Most Important Artists

Best of 2009 | 100 Favourite Songs of the Decade | 100 Most Important Songs of the Decade

Welcome to Part 19 of the Noughtie series. We're almost there now... this is the final listing before the BIG TWO listings. This is the final preview listing. This listing, is the official preview for the big finale, the Top 100 Most Important Songs of the Decade.

So the artists below, they're not my favourite artists. I like some, not others. But, in my opinion, no other 10 artists made a bigger impact on the decade. Put simply, if none of the 10 artists featured in this listing made music in the decade, this decade wouldn't have been the same. So these artists, as you can imagine, will have a big say on who comes out on top when I count down the Top 100 most important songs of the decade. It's getting serious now, so let's get to business.

#10. Muse

Muse have had a great decade. After their debut album "Showbiz" in '99, which was well received yet relatively green, Muse embarked on a journey to take over the world. "Origin of Symmetry" in 2001 was a fantastic album, and raised a lot of eyebrows in the UK, making Muse one of Britain's promising new acts. "Absolution" in '03 solidified their status of one of Britains best bands. In 2004, Muse's performance at Glastonbury has been seen as one of the most fantastic festival gigs of all time, and was reminiscent of Radiohead the year before. The difference was that Muse were entering their peak, Radiohead were on solid ground around the world.
That's exactly what Muse wanted to do next. They had conquered the UK, but they needed to broaden their horizons. They were barely knocking on the door of the US. But in 2006, "Black Holes and Revelations" was the Jack Torrence axe in the door of the US. They finally turned heads on the grand soil of America. And in 2009, Muse continued this vein of form with "The Resistance" a melodramatic Queen-inspired concept album.
Can Muse do better? Well they haven't had a #1 hit yet. But their music has been consistent, their singles are always great. Their biggest hit is "Supermassive Black Hole", which got to #4. Will they? I do feel it may be a matter of time. They just need to have that one song, the one that is universally well liked and for the charts to go in their favour at the same time. Good luck to them.

#9. Arctic Monkeys

Continuing the theme of UK bands, the Arctic Monkeys have also had a great decade. They only released their first album in 2006 but the three albums released in the decade are all huge hits and have been universally well received critically and have sold very well. Man, the anticipation for "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" has never been replicated in the decade, in my opinion. It was the fastest selling debut album in the UK, although I'm unsure if it's still got that record. So many people have called the Arctic Monkeys the new Oasis, which is a huge compliment due to the popularity of the Brit-Pop band. However personally, I believe the band play better music, but this isn't a biased listing!
It's difficult to say where the Arctic Monkeys can go from here. They have produced three great albums, all well received, but they can't seem to penetrate America much. They seem to have come to a bit of a halt, and while they are near the top, it's still a long way they can fall if they get complacent. 2 number 1 hits in a row hasn't been replicated, although "Brianstorm" got to number 1. Here's to Arctic Monkey's fourth album being hopefully the one to get the attention of the Yanks, because they deserve it.

#8. Linkin Park

Here we go, we've gone overseas now. Linkin Park have also had a great decade, in the US and the UK. It's rare for a metal band to have such a large fanbase, especially so early in their career, and they've managed to keep a good amount of those fans to this day. "Hybrid Theory" has sold a ridiculous amount of copies, and is still considered one of the best albums of the decade today. As I said, a metal band like Linkin Park getting this popular is an oddity, but they do take it in their stride. Their two lead singers, Chester Bennington, who does the melodies and the screaming vocals, and Mike Shinoda does the rapping. It's unusal that a band with two lead singers have no ego issues whatsoever. It's also a fantastic combination, I love the songs that have both vocalists play sections of the track (Papercut, Bleed It Out), the two styles really blend fantastically well.
It's hard to really talk more about Linkin Park, they're one of those bands who have just done fantastically well, they've made a lot of money on all their albums and singles, but haven't quite got to the top of the charts. I doubt they will to be honest, especially with their sound slightly tweaking nowadays, to suit a more emo audience (that's not a knock on the band, a lot bands evolve their music to the sound of the moment). Kudos to them.

#7. My Chemical Romance

I've discussed a few times about the fact that I don't like this band. But this is an unbiased listing, and like it or not, My Chemical Romance are one of the outstanding artists of the decade. MCR are one of the flag holders for the emo invastion that surged half way though the decade. Songs like "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" and "Helena" stapled their status as a band with starpower. Teenage girls cried ovr Gerard Way's looks, and all teenage boys modelled their looks after him. "Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge" is an album that is cemented in the decade's history as a band here to stay.
Then came out "The Black Parade". I've got to admit, an emo band, an emo band doing a concept album, an emo band doing a concept album with "Welcome to the Black Parade" as the debut track off the album getting to #1 was one of the shocks of the decade for me. How did that get to #1 in the UK? It's an extremely unfancied track, it's not particulary catchy. But they did it. Kudos to them.
MCR have enough in the bag to pull a large fanbase in the mid-teens department with the look of the band being the prominent selling point, and their talents as a band being tolerable enough for them to continue in their success in the next decade. I'll never like them though.

#6. Blink-182 
 
It's funny, Blink-182 haven't actually released an album since 2003, yet they've managed to stay extremely relevant through the decade. Their huge three albums (Enema of the State was released in '99, but in 2000 "All the Small Things" is their biggest hit ever) around the start of the decade has cemented them as one of the greatest punk rival bands of the decade. They tweaked their sound with the last album to appeal to the rise in emo music, yet they still had that punk revival edge to their music. They were, sorry, are, just a very likable band. I mean personally, they're okay, but I don't know many people who dislike the band. They have a very loyal fanbase, who are one of the main reasons why they have got back together in the first place.
"All the Small Things" will not be beat. It's one of the most important songs of the decade, quite how important you'll find out in my final listing, but the video, along with the simple lyrics and soft sounding guitars, makes it incredibly relevant. But they did a lot of good, fantastically received songs. They've had a great decade, although most of the actual music making was in the first half of it.

#5. The Killers

We're approaching the big five now. There's a level up from this moment on I think. The five bands I'm about to mention dominated the decade. We're starting with The Killers. The Killers released three albums last decade, all three of them got to #1 in the UK album charts. All three albums were critical and commercial successes. All three albums had huge hit singles off them. That's quite frankly the reason why they're this high on the list. If you listen to the radio that plays songs from the last 10 years, chances are you will hear these songs. Whether it's "Somebody Told Me", "Mr Brightside", "When You Were Young", "Human", or another track, you will hear them. The Killers rocked the decade harder than most bands. They never got a #1 single in the UK, the closest they got was #2 with "When You Were Young". That will be their next target I'm sure, when they release their new album late this year or early next year.
My thoughts on The Killers? They're okay, they make songs that are radio friendly that I can listen to without any problems. There's no song I can say I love by them though#. But once again, The Killers are one of those bands that seem universally popular, I don't hear many haters of The Killers. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough!

#4. Coldplay

That's right Chris Martin, #4 in the most important listing in the world, Johnny Mercyside's Most Important Artists of the Decade listing. He's proud of that. Seriously though I couldn't help but tag that picture!
Anyway, Coldplay feel like they've been around forever. They're fifteen years old now, which is making me realise how old I am. You can like them or you can hate them, but they owned the decade, especially for Britain. No band really has come close to the success and popularity Coldplay have had. When "Yellow" and "Trouble" became huge hits in the year 2000, you could tell that there was something a wee special about the band, they had something that people found appealing. I don't like Coldplay can I say, but regardless, I could see there was something about them. And every album that came out after "Parachutes", the main single from that album took the charts by storm, took its place in peoples homes. You couldn't get rid of Coldplay when they released every debut track off each album. That's "In My Place", then "Speed of Sound", and then finally, "Viva la Vida". Coldplay released "In My Place", crossing their fingers for a #1 hit. It got to #2, beaten by Darius! Remember him!. I#m sure they were absolutely gutted!. Then "Speed of Sound"... got to #2 again. What was #1? Crazy Frog! Bwahaha! Ahem. Sorry. Yes so the streak continued, Coldplay never got a #1 hit. Until... "Viva la Vida" came out. Finally, Coldplay got to #1 in the UK. It also got to #1 in the US, the first time an artist from the UK had done so since the Spice Girls. Absolutely well fucking done. I mean I don't like Coldplay but it's nice when we can crack the US. And Coldplay did that. That's why they're the highest rated band from the UK in this chart. So that means that the other three must be American bands then. Maybe. Anyway, let's go.

#3. Kings of Leon

Kings of Leon were a huge triumph in the decade. They took country music, throttled it into todays garage rock and alternative rock music scene, and made it cool again. The three brothers and cousin from Nashville, Tennessee, home of country music, started off as one of those cool bands that produced high quality singles and very good albums. They became quite popular in the UK, more so than in the US, where their success was slowly built. Songs like "Molly's Chambers", "The Bucket" and "On Call" always made sure they were strong in the UK, while all their albums have gotten in the top 3 in the UK charts. Kings of Leon were hard to dislike, liked to swap beards and hair, and just be a great fucking band.
And then "Sex on Fire" came out. When that song got released, everything changed. Everyone was obsessed with that track, everyone was obsessed with this band. Kings of Leon had made it. The song got to #1 in the UK, it became everyone's favourite song to sing on kareoke, and spent a ridiculous amount of time in the charts. If you live in the UK and was listening to music in 2008 and have never heard this song then you are stupid. "Use Somebody" got released when America stopped sleeping and the Yanks finally paid attention, it got to #4 there and #2 here, resulting in two very strong singles in a row. Kings of Leon also started rocking brilliant tours, they were on top of the world. I can't say any of the bands on this list finish the decade as strong as Kings of Leon do.

#2. Green Day

 
I'm going to make a confession here. The top three you are going to see today are not in the order they were when I started writing this. The top three have changed places a lot, and I've decided on this. I can't change it now. Disagree? You can debate that.
Anyway, Blink-182 were not the biggest punk rock revival band of the decade. Green Day was. They have tweaked their sound to appeal to a broader audience, and their last two albums have sold a ridiculous amount of records. "American Idiot", if I actually did compile the biggest albums of the decade, probably would have got the #1 spot. Green Day were always in their comfort zone, releasing albums that were quite successful, releasing tracks that were well received, all the way to to "Warning". Green Day were a band that people could depend on to make decent records yet never penetrate the commercial charts. When "American Idiot" came out, everything changed, they became this band that everyone wanted to see, especially live. They were known for their fantastic live sets, and all the singles off the album were just made out of gold, in the critics eye. They made fantastic videos, especially "Wake Me Up When September Ends", everyone loved Green Day. They started to become one of those bands that people hated for being so popular, you know you're doing something right when that happens. And "20th Century Breakdown" may have had mixed reviews, but the album sold fantastically, and "Know Your Enemy" was a decent hit too. Green Day were untouchable towards the middle of the decade, and that's why they're #2.

Before I talk about #1, I just want to talk about some artists that miss out on this chart. Oasis and U2 both had the most amount of #1 hits in the decade. Why aren't they on the list? Can you tell me that they produced huge albums, that were critically and commerically well received? Their singles got to #1, some of their albums did too, but they never maintained the popularity after their released materials surfaced. There aren't a great deal of songs by either artist that really stand out, not as much as the artists above. And artists like Metallica and Kid Rock sold loads and loads of albums, without really denting the singles charts. The same rule applies, very few of their tracks really stand out. I didn't want to include artists like Eminem and Jay-Z as this is predominantely a rock and metal listing, and didn't want rap to take the spotlight. I still pay homage to these alternative rappers in other listings though.

So who's #1? Unfortunately, it's...

#1. Nickelback

Don't hate me, I come in peace. I just can't see past Nickelback really, as the most important artist of the decade. They rocked it from start to finish, consistently in America and the UK. They had loads of hits, they had well received albums, and they've maintained and grew their fanbase. They're definitely the most consistent band of the decade, starting it from "How You Remind Me", easily one of the biggest songs of the decade, and "Silver Side Up" was a mega hit. "Too Bad" was the second single and was also a Top 10 hit in the UK. First single off "The Long Road" ensured that "Someday" would be a huge hit on both sides of the pond, and "Photograph" was a big hit in the UK, and a #1 hit in the US, the first single off "All the Right Reasons".
But the mega hit? The song that wouldn't leave radio stations, music video stations and DFS adverts? "Rockstar". Although it got to #2, the track has gone triple platinum and is one of the most played tracks of the decade. Put it this way, "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis was #1 at the time, and while that will be remembered as one of the biggest pop songs, I can see "Rockstar" being remembered better in 10 years time.
The daunting thing for me, as someone who hates Nickelback (although I do have a soft spot for "Rockstar" and "Figured You Out") is the idea that they will be in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in the future. If they continue to be relevant, and I can't see them going away, it's only a matter of time. I can see it happening in around 15 or 20 years. And it's quite depressing really. But at the same time, there are so many people who will disagree, that they are a great rock band. That they deserve some respect. They have a lot of haters, they really do, yet it doesn't knock their confidence, or their popularity. They are definitely the rock equivalent of say Justin Bieber or The Jonas Brothers. I just mentioned those two artists on this site, and now people can google their names and get directed here. Shit.

Anyway, there we go. Do you agree? Disagree? Let me know your thoughts. These 10 artists have been very relevant, have sold loads of singles and loads of albums, and have had critical and commercial successes throughout the decade. But am I missing someone? Would you change the order? Should the likes of Oasis, U2 and Metallica have had a place in here and my reasons for leaving them out unjustified? Let me know, comment below. Otherwise I'll be back on Friday, with the final mixtape, the best of a mediocre year in 2009. Take care.