ClassicRockHistory.com

Our list of 10 Classic Rock Songs About Dogs explores the many ways rock musicians have used canine images. A few of these songs were inspired by real dogs, while others use dogs as symbols of loyalty, danger, abandonment, appetite, competition, or desire. The list ranges from early rock and roll and 1960s folk-pop to progressive rock, punk, hard rock, and modern thrash metal...

Our Top 10 Joan Jett Songs list celebrates a musician whose career connects the hard-edged glam and punk of the 1970s with the anthemic rock of the 1980s and the independent spirit of later generations. Joan Jett first became widely known as a guitarist, singer, and songwriter in the Runaways, where she stood beside Cherie Currie on “Cherry Bomb” and helped define the band’s ...

Our 10 favorite Smiths songs celebrate the recordings we return to most often from one of the most distinctive bands of the 1980s. Morrissey’s dramatic, funny, and frequently wounded lyrics found their ideal musical setting in Johnny Marr’s inventive guitar arrangements, Andy Rourke’s melodic bass lines, and Mike Joyce’s forceful but flexible drumming. Formed in Manchester in...

Our Top 10 No Doubt Songs list looks back at a ska band that became one of the biggest pop-rock acts of the 1990s, fueled by great musicians and Gwen Stefani’s undeniable star power. It is difficult to categorize No Doubt because the band explored so many different styles. From their ska-punk roots to rock and roll, jazz, funk, pop, reggae, and dancehall, No Doubt developed a...

During the fall of 1975, I was walking past a record store in Long Island’s Smith Haven Mall when a large poster caught my eye in the window of Sam Goody. At the time, Sam Goody was one of the largest record-store chains in New York State. The poster featured two men shaking hands. That image might not have seemed unusual if one of the men had not been engulfed in flames. I w...