For a while now I’ve thought about this same question. However, I don’t think it was the indie bands of the eighties and nineties that necessarily “killed the rock star.” Instead I think that there is a multitude of ways to consume and discover music. I was discussing this very topic with a friend recently, and he was lamenting the lameness of current music. I disagreed. I think that there is an enormous amount of brilliant music available today. The difference is the internet. Today, an artist can end run around the major labels, post their music on-line, promote themselves on MySpace, and even release their videos on YouTube. In essence, a rock fan has to be much more diversified, and the band or artist will have to tour (gone are the days of the Steely Dan “studio” band). I think it is useful to think about the traditional 60’s/70’s/80’s “rock star” as analogous to print media or network television. These entities now have to compete with cable, internet, and now blogs. The traditional paradigm is not quite dead, but certainly diminished.

I remember about ten or eleven years ago I was discussing the future of Pearl Jam with a friend. I distinctly remember saying that I thought they would adopt the “Grateful Dead” career model. Well, I was right, and that is why they are one of the only survivors of that era. Whatever one’s opinion of the jam band scene, one has to acknowledge that these bands were among the first to benefit from the changing landscape of music.

Yes, perhaps the iconic version of the rock star is going the way of the glacier, but that is probably better for the savvy music fan who knows where to look.

Do the people who put the list together even like music? This is just off the top of my head. I didn't even get into the missing Beefheart, The Replacements, The Ramones, etc.

Muddy Waters- Hard Again

Love- Forever Changes

The Grateful Dead- Live/Dead

Patti Smith- Horses

Herbie Hancock- Headhunters

Leonard Cohen- Songs of Leonard Cohen

Allman Brothers Band- Live at the Fillmore East

A Tribe Called Quest-Midnight Marauders

The Band- The Band

Jimmy Cliff- The Harder They Come

Side note: Dylan was well represented, but no Blonde on Blonde?

I think a whole lot depends on how young John Maine does this year. He has to have a break-out year. Personally, I think he will. Also Pedro will return sometime around the All-Star break. The Mets have been careful with him since his last start (a nightmare against the BoSox) so I’d expect him to be healthy and fresh in August and September. If it’s close in the East, that could be the difference.

Dylan is not only rock's greatest Jewish artist, but arguably rock's greatest artist period. So I voted for him. However, I think Leonard Cohen deserves special mention. He never became as popular as Dylan, but in many ways his career is much more consistent. Like Dylan, Cohen has also traveled down similar spiritual paths (often times describing these travels more poetically). Cohen is a great poet who I've always considered to be related to the Jewish mystic tradition. I mean, really, is there an album that so profoundly articulates problems of love and faith better than Various Positions?

I think you may not understand the basic premise of House. Believe it or not, House is only meant to be peripherally a medical show. It is primarily an elaborate homage to Sherlock Holmes. Seriously.

I fear that baseball has been headed down the road that boxing traveled down years ago. We have outrageous ticket prices, expensive t.v. packages we have to buy in order to watch or even listen to the games, and the contemptuous attitude displayed by the commissioner. Over the holidays my mom was telling my wife how much I loved boxing as a child (remember the middle weight division of the 1980's?). My wife had never heard of me really talk about boxing before. Boxing voluntarily made itself unavailable for regular people. Look at where boxing is now. It's a joke. Baseball seems to be working off of the same blueprint: it can make more money off of less fans. The Extra Innings change is a small victory. Sure, it's clear Kerry isn't really a fan (i.e. his once referring to a "Manny Ortiz") and he was clearly grandstanding, but I am one of those people who view baseball as special so if it takes a grandstanding pol interfering to allow more people to see the game, I say keep interfering. It's not like the free market has been doing us fans any favors.

I half expected to be the only one commenting that it is probably a bit unfair to start blaming the university's actions. Kudos (although I am not surprised) to my fellow Salon readers for being, REASONABLE.

Of course universities are not prepared for this sort of thing. If they had locked down the university, and it had turned out to be an isolated domestic issue, I'm sure Salon would have written a criticism quoting students complaining about how school officials overreacted like fascist overlords. And you know what, I would have agreed. University administrations are not security experts, they're educators. They took the advice of local authorities, which from what I can gather, would have been right 99% of the time.

My thoughts go out to the people in the VA Tech community.