On the last few days of my vacation last week, I found myself watching the VH-1 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock countdown--for fear of changing the channel and hearing another bogus proclamation about the almost two week old Presidential Election result coverage. Apart from the excruciatingly bad hosting by Carmen Electra (who apparently never learned to read), it was like a trip down memory lane. A lot those bands I thought of as gospel in my youth were evaluated and voted on by artists and journalists (almost 500 of them!) and then condensed into a pretty little list.

Their definition of hard rock is sketchy. Included on the list were heavy metal, punk, grunge, alt-rock, progressive metal and other assorted odds and ins. This made for a wide assortment of strange choices in the back 40. It also excluded a few bands that influenced many or most of these bands--because they weren't "hard" enough.

The Beatles were never mentioned.

The Rolling Stones were number 67, but the segment was prefaced by "this band isn't really hard rock but should be mentioned" for fear that someone might misunderstand the importance of Mick and Keith. Since Guns N' Roses and Aerosmith were both in the top 15 (and were directly influenced by the Stones to the point of being called Stones rip-offs), it's obvious that there were some oversights in the balloting. Possibly the forms sent out to the artists and journalists were not clear or maybe the boxes didn't line up correctly, but that's really a matter for the courts to decide.

In the bottom 20 were a few of my favorite artists: Primus, Lenny Kravitz, The Black Crowes, Tool and Green Day. And many influential, but not quite so best selling artists were also in this bunch: Bad Brains, Fugazi, the Misfits (who were identified as Danzig in the segment, and have also been called the greatest band that sold more t-shirts than music), King's X and the Pixies.

To be sure, this is an eclectic and mixed list. Heavily leaning toward the 70s and almost dismissing the late 80s altogether. The rankings of 90s alt-rock bands are all over the map. And since I grew up in the late 80s and was in college during the onset of grunge, this is my personal peeve: how in the hell did Alice In Chains (who I like, but are among the lesser grunge bands) beat out Jane's Addiction--who began the alt-rock revolution a few years before Nirvana? Okay, Chains only beat Jane's by one notch, but considering that disillusionment and disenfranchisement began in me with a potent mixture of Axl Rose and Perry Ferrell, I wonder about the Rooster's dominance.

This is all nit-picking, really. If they asked us (the viewers) about the best bands of hard rock, Creed would probably be somewhere in the top 10 (they didn't make the list, which is one point for artists and journalists). I only say this because most Internet surveys of this type skew toward new bands. Like people who listen to music today never go back more than five years when they think of their favorite music. And maybe they don't. Maybe we all have etch-a-sketch memories when it comes to pointing and clicking. When asked for the best dance song ever, the new Madonna song (whichever one it is at the time) usually gets in the top five on these Internet lists. So selectively asking artists and journalists certainly got us a better spread of music than would happen otherwise.

The top ten is an interesting mix of short-lived bands and life long rockers. Jimi Hendrix (3), Nirvana (6) and Guns N' Roses (9) all only had three albums to their name (I don't count live, repackaged or greatest hits things). Led Zeppelin (1) and The Who (8) both stopped recording new music when their drummers died, but both had a healthy amount of recording before this occurred (and both bands still tour in various Karaoke incarnations). While Black Sabbath (2), AC/DC (4), Van Halen (7) and Kiss (10) still tour, make new music (even though it's almost universally dismissed as crap), and trudge on through line up and make up changes.

So what is the secret? Why are these bands heaviosity so great, while others who did not make the list are not so good? Well, it's all subjective. Kind of like relegating inventive (and not quite so commercially successful) bands like Sonic Youth (54), Faith No More (52) and Nine Inch Nails (43) to the middle of the pack. Or including Spinal Tap (75) and Jethro Tull (61) for comic effect.

I have many personal favorites who didn't make the list, but really should have been included (especially if bands like Korn, Stone Temple Pilots, Whitesnake, Twisted Sister and the New York Dolls get in): Radiohead, Soul Asylum, Mother Love Bone, Sublime and NOFX (the greatest punk band ever). A sentimental favorite of the late 80s (who sold next to nothing and ripped off the Stones whenever they could) is the Dogs D'Amour, whose whiskey-soaked blues still haunts me.

And I'm sure everyone has that one band they rawwwked out to that didn't even get considered for this list. To all those forgotten rawkers out there, I pump my fist and bang my head, because what else is there to do? Ask for a recount?

Matt Worley thinks that everyone who is still interested in this freaking Presidential Election mess should watch a re-run of last week's South Park: best political satire of the year.