10 Perfect Rock Songs That Changed Music History

Around the mid '70s, rock and roll had started to look like a shell of itself. As much as acts like Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin may have been the biggest bands in the world, there was something lost in the shuffle, with bands sounding larger than life and not even on the same level as the man on the street looking to hear some loud guitar. We needed something to get us back to our roots, and a couple of misfits from the boroughs of New York found their way back through just a handful of chords.

For as important as Blitzkrieg Bop is though, it's not exactly the most complicated song in the world, with Johnny Ramone only playing power chords throughout the song and getting in and out of there in a little less than three minutes. What's important here is the attitude, taking the building blocks of pop rock that had existed in the early '60s and putting a twisted slant on it, writing lyrics that were more about the punks that filled rowdy clubs in the heart of New York City.

For all of the by the numbers elements of this song, The Ramones hit upon something magical here, letting the rest of the world know that you don't really need to be the most technical musician in the world to be a rock star. It might not be the most inventive thing in the world, but if you had a lot of heart and knew how to count to four, you could do pretty much anything else.