Allow me to begin this vicarious post with a brief introduction: I am Chris, the older brother of Tommy on this board. An engineer, tinkerer, amateur chef, and casual guitarist, I will be entering my first year of graduate school at Virginia Tech. I would like to believe that I am chiefly responsible for Tommy’s tastes in music, for which I am most proud.
As the title of this post suggests, I wish to draw your collective attention to the resurgence of what Tommy and I call real music. While what Neil Young said is true, rock certainly did take a back seat recently. As such, it pleases me that a slew of new hard rock bands are gaining attention on the national level. Perhaps there is hope for music yet.
This past year has been particularly fruitful, with nearly a dozen new albums from major rock and metal bands, including Disturbed, Chevelle, Bullet For My Valentine, All That Remains, Halestorm, Sevendust, and even Puddle of Mudd. Capping this peak of progress is Avenged Sevenfold, releasing their new album, Nightmare, in the wake of the passing of their drummer, Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan. Barely two weeks old, the album is being hailed as the band’s greatest work to date, and achieved the rare honor of holding the #1 spot on the Billboard 200 list. More importantly, the record usurped the position of bestselling album in the country from Eminem’s freshest attempt to polish a turd.
Rock has gained new exposure from the video game market in the form of the Guitar Hero/Rock Band series, which have sought out increasingly more difficult guitar pieces for their games. Their search seems to have landed them on the goldmine known as metalcore – harsh, loud, aggressive, and most of all, technical, metal that will blast the pop crap out of one’s rear with extreme repugnance.
So, cheers to rock and metal, striking fear into the hearts of the ignorant, joy and euphoria into those who are not, and proving that some of us still realize that lip synching and prancing about onstage is not music (or even evidence of talent for that matter). Cheers to those out there who have joined the ranks of rockers and metal-heads and who have thus helped bring about this change in the wind. Now go to the nearest concert and rock out!
RyanKantor.com 
The antithesis of Katy Perry, Black Eyed Peas, and Eminem
While we are supremely proud of both Chris and Tom (our sons), we’d like to clarify that WE are chiefly responsible for BOTH of their tastes in music. They grew up in a home where the classic rock of our generation was played–Beatles, Who, Zeppelin, to name a few–which formed the foundation for their musical preferences and the ensuing evolution thereof. Over the years our sons have turned us on to newer music–Shinedown, Disturbed, Alter Bridge, Breaking Benjamin & more–proving that the family that rocks together, stays together. We trust that they and their future offspring will carry on this tradition.
I don’t disagree….you guys giving me classic rock laid the foundation for my modern rock interests. I guess the best way of saying it is that Chris helped gave me an extra boost in the direction of modern hard rock and metal. But without the classic rock foundation, I don’t know if we would have been as open to that stuff.