Recommend rock songs to a "rock virgin"

All of the above. And ditch Coldplay.

And Oasis.

There's no way a concrete recommendation could be made for such a broad topic. I'd start with some of the "classics" and go from there. Perhaps by decade?

Wait, You've heard of The Beatles, right?

Maybe it's just a product of gorwing up in Australia, but I honestly for the life of me cannot get my head around someone making it to their thirties and not having even a passing understanding of 'this music called rock and/or roll'

It seriously boggles my mind. You'd have to be living in a cave or some sort of commune the bulk of your life to not be inundated by rock music even by default in this country.

Not knocking you redryder, but where are you from if I can ask?

Rolling Stones, Dylan, Reed and track every influence behind Radiohead. Also check for the Pixies and Nick Cave.

Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent, The Beach Boys, Neil Young (whatever incarnation), The Talking Heads, David Bowie (Ziggy Stardust is as good an introduction as any), as mentioned The Rolling Stones, The Clash, hell Guns N Roses, Dire Straits, The Kinks, The Who, Jimi Hendrix...

The list goes on and on.

EDIT: Shit, it's supposed to be songs. Nope. Just start digging through some albums, get the 'single' mentality out of your head.

Here's a song that I'm listening to right now, and it's one of my bestest rock song buddies: "Everlong", by the Foo Fighters.

Well It takes time to get used to what you call white noise (no pun here). Eventually you will be comfortable even with Velvet Underground playing louder than bombs. You could start with Nick Cave's "Nocturama" or his earlier efforts.

Check out Arch Enemy's DOOMSDAY MACHINE.

Might as well cut to the chase.

The topic may be crazy, but keeping with the request for singles that would appeal to a noob (which, much as I love them, would disqualify most Radiohead)...

The Rolling Stones - "Gimme Shelter", "Jumping Jack Flash", "Honky Tonk Woman", "Midnight Rambler"

Led Zeppelin - "Over the Hills and Far Away", "In The Evening", "Bring It On Home"

Dire Straits - "Sultans of Swing", "Down To The Waterline", "What's the Matter, Baby"

Warren Zevon - "Lawyers, Guns, and Money", "Werewolves of London", "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me"

The Band - "The Weight", "Ophelia", "Stage Fright", Don't Do It", "Atlantic City"

Bruce Springsteen - "Born To Run", "Radio Nowhere", "Thunder Road",

Bob Dylan -"Like A Rolling Stone", "Subterranean Homesick Blues", "Shelter From the Storm"

The Kinks - "All Day, All Night", "Lola", "You Really Got Me"

Jimi Hendrix - "The Wind Cries Mary", "All Along the Watchtower", "Fire", "Castles Made of Sand"

The Beatles - "Twist and Shout", "Hey Jude", "Revolution", "Let It Be"

Thin Lizzy - "Cowboy Song", "Chinatown", "Whiskey in the Jar"

The Who - "Baba O'Reily", "Behind Blue Eyes", "Won't Get Fooled Again"

That should get you started on the classics.

More Rolling Stones:

"Heartbreaker"

"Can't You Hear Me Knocking"

"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"

"She's A Rainbow"

"Brown Sugar"

"You Can't Always Get What You Want"

"Let It Bleed"

"Paint It Black"

"Robert Montgomery" - Love
"No Fun" - The Stooges
"Lord Of This World" - Black Sabbath
"Cowgirl In The Sand" - Neil Young
"Jigsaw Puzzle" - Rolling Stones
"Tomorrow Never Knows" The Beatles
"Teenage Riot" - Sonic Youth
"Ball And Biscuit" - White Stripes
"Heaven And Hell" (Live at Leeds version) - The Who
"Gouge Away" - The Pixies
"Rockaway Beach" - Ramones
"Cowboy Song" - Thin Lizzy
"Omaha" - Moby Grape
"Kick Out The Jams" - MC5

But like others have said, this is just scratching the surface; I've been a rock fan for more than 20 years and I still find cool new shit to listen to all the time.

Plenty of great classics being recommended here, so for stuff that's a bit more modern but still accessible, I'd recommend these albums:

The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow

The National - Boxer

Spoon - Kill The Moonlight

Silversun Pickups - Swoon

The White Stripes - Elephant

Radiohead - OK Computer

Muse - Absolution

Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

Grandaddy - The Sophtware Slump

Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare


Most of these are lighter rock but give punk, grunge, metal etc. a try just to find out whether or not they're your cup of tea.

Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet.

The only rock album to be endorsed by Bethoven.

Also, get some live dvd's of epic performances. No better to understand why people get excited by this type of music than watching a great performer onstage (also, this is a movie site so I'd guess you're interested in the visual aspect as well)
Recommends:
-That mammoth Led Zep dvd package
-The Who at Isle of Wight
-Woodstock (duh)
-Rattle & Hum
-Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii
-The Last Waltz
-a Neil Young concert film (Rust Never Sleeps, Year of the Horse or Heart of Gold)
-Talking Heads 'Stop Making Sense'

When you feel you've gotten confident enough to move on, hit the 90s running:

Soundgarden - Badmotorfinger
Pearl Jam - Ten
Alice In Chains - Dirt
Rage Against The Machine - self-titled
Nirvana - Nevermind
Foo Fighters - The Colour And The Shape
Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power
Metallica - ....And Justice For All
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral

Here's a list of some quick suggestions:

"Tom Sawyer", Rush; "Hot for Teacher", Van Halen; "From Out of Nowhere", Faith No More; "Crime Scene Part One", Afghan Whigs; "Eternal Life", Jeff Buckley; "Breed", Nirvana; "Dig For Fire", Pixies; "Bombtrack", Rage Against the Machine; "A Good Idea", Sugar.

Everything there is "rock", but each track will give you a little flavour of various other genres/sub-genres (punk rock, alt. rock, etc.) It's also heavily 90's. What can I say? I love 90's rock. Oh, "Cherub Rock" by the Smashing Pumpkins, too!

Great song suggestions so far. When you find some bands that you like, try and dive a little deeper into their catalogs and listen to the stuff that isn't played on the radio. For many bands, this 'uncommercial' stuff is the GOLD that really makes the band come alive.

Additional song suggestions:
'Ace of Spades' by Motorhead
'Run to the Hills' by Iron Maiden (get that whole album, actually)
'Smoke on the Water' by Deep Purple
'Holy Diver' by Dio

*golfclap*

Until this guy said he was from Singapore (And will someone get Felix Natayla in here), I figured he lived in that town where John Lithgow banned dancing.

Not geared toward your request, but here are some random mixes I made for a friend on playlist.com. The second one is fun 80s junk.

http://www.playlist.com/playlist/15630599435

http://www.playlist.com/playlist/13167284747

To make your project far more affordable, I highly recommend lala.com

On Lala, you can listen to any song once in it's entirety, for free, via your browser. Good way to try before you buy. Also, if you end up buying from them, it's usually cheaper.

Also, you might want to try Pandora. It will suggest/play stuff based on the preference information you give it. Plug in a Beach Boys song you like, and the next track it plays could be The Flaming Lips, for example.

Seems like the New Wave genre often gets the shaft when it comes to "rock".

I highly recommend exploring the early catalogues of these artists:

The Clash
Blondie
The Pretenders
Talking Heads
The Cars
Depeche Mode
Devo
The Police
Elvis Costello
The Cure

GREAT recommendation. It's a free service, so go nuts.

Three off the top of this losers head...

Muse - Knights of Cydonia
Ramones - Do You Remember Rock & Roll Radio?
Elvis Costello - Pony St.

couple of older and "classic" acts :

the doors
roxy music

couple of brit acts :

manic street preachers
new model army

...heavier :

the cult
tool

hope these are not mentioned, what ever you buy/find from these is worth listening/your time, they have not released anything bad !

Unfortunately, Pandora doesn't work out of the US. But try Last.fm which works pretty well for me.

You can also try one of the free streaming services like Live365, which has stations for all audio genres. Just listen to some Classic Rock (or Contemporary Rock, if you like) stations for a while, that should save you the immediate cost of shopping the iTunes store and give you a good taste of what's available.

I still suggest starting with the classics, but some more modern stuff that isn't too intimidating.

Talking Heads - "Once In A Lifetime", "This Must Be The Place"

Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Higher Ground", "Soul To Squeeze"

The Killers - "When You Were Young", "Read My Mind"

David Bowie - "Rebel, Rebel", "Heroes"

The Hold Steady - "Stuck Between Stations"

Radiohead - "Electioneering", "Idioteque", "Reckoner"

Silversun Pickups - "Panic Switch"

Social Distortion - "Ball and Chain", "Under My Thumb"

Wilco - "Handshake Drugs", "Theologians"

The White Stripes - "Doorbell", "Hotel Yorba"

Nine Inch Nails - "Head Like A Hole", "The Perfect Drug"

Neutral Milk Hotel - "Holland, 1945"

The Pixies - "Where Is My Mind?", "Debaser"

I could go on for forever, but I'm just trying to give you a good place to taste-test various bands. You'll develop a sense of what you like pretty rapidly.

The Velvet Underground's last two LPs, the self-titled one and Loaded. They aren't noisy like the earlier ones, and contain warm, melodic paeans to rock and roll. Should be inviting and...scholarly of the genre, from its alt country to psychedelic pop elements. Yes.

The Soft Machine's Volume 1 & 2 albums are between jazz and rock, so I presume they may be welcome entry points as well...as is the album Rock Bottom from Soft Machine's Robert Wyatt, a major influence on Radiohead; it's fairly mellow and melancholy.

redryer, when you've sampled some of this stuff, I'd like to hear what grabbed you right away and what you didn't like and all that stuff. I've never encountered someone whose introduction to rock wasn't tied up rather extensively with youth and adolescence, and I'm curious about the results.

If you want to start at the beginning, here's some early days favorites:

1. "Rocket 88"--Kings of Rhythm
2. "Rock Around The Clock"--Bill Haley & the Comets
3. "Around And Around"--Chuck Berry
4. "School Days"--Chuck Berry
5. "Too Much Monkey Business"--Chuck Berry
6. "Little Queenie"--Chuck Berry
7. "Let It Rock"--Chuck Berry
8. "Good Rockin' Tonight"--Elvis
9. "Blue Suede Shoes"--Elvis
10 "Let's Play House"--Elvis
11 "Mystery Train"--Elvis
12 "Twenty Flight Rock"-Eddie Cochran
13 "C'mon Everybody"-Eddie Cochran
14 "Be-Bop-A-Lula"-Gene Vincent
15 "Cry, Cry, Cry"--Johnny Cash
16 "Walk The Line"-Cash
17 "Get Rhythm"--Cash
18 "Travelin' Man"--Ricky Nelson
19 "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On"-Jerry Lee Lewis
20 "Good Golly Miss Molly"-Little Richard
21 "Rip It Up"--Little Richard
22 "That'll Be The Day"--Buddy Holly
23 "Maybe Baby"--Buddy Holly
24 "Money Honey"-The Drifters
25 ""Young Blood" "Searchin'-Drifters
26 "Wake Me, Shake Me"--The Coasters
27 "Down In Mexico"--The Coasters
28 "Lonesome Town"--Ricky Nelson
29 "Don't Be Cruel"--Elvis
30 "All Shook Up"--Elvis
31 "Jailhouse Rock"--Elvis
32 "The Wanderer"--Dion
33 "Why Do Fools Fall In Love"--Frankie Lyman & the Teenagers
34 "La Bamba"--Richie Valens
35 "Chantilly Lace"-Big Bopper
35 "No Particular Place To Go"--Chuck Berry
36 "Last Kiss"-Wayne Cochran
37 "Save The Last Dance For Me"-Drifters
38 "You Never Can Tell"--Chuck Berry
39 "Only The Lonely"--Roy Orbison
40 "Stand By Me"--Ben E. King

Fat Elvis I think I have all those songs... ha ha

I'll add the next step in the logical progression from what the King just laid down for you, TS.


'Louie, Louie' by the Kingsmen

'Land of 1000 Dances' by Wilson Pickett

'Good Lovin'' by the Rascals

'Do You Love Me' by the Sonics

'Jack the Ripper' by Link Wray

'Long Tall Sally' by Little Richard