While we muster up our enthusiasm for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, why not engage in some competition in the musical arena? Which are the composers who will come out on top, showing a versatility worthy of Jim Thorpe or Babe Didriksen or medaling faster than Florence Griffith Joyner or Ian Thorpe?

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I don't want to hear about how modern rock & roll has lost its soul, fire or whatever anymore. No more talk about the old days being the good days and how there are no bands left with any flash, noise or the ability to kick some serious ass at any given moment. It's simply not true! You just need to know where to look to find bands that still burn with the fever of rock & roll. Just check these three hidden treasures from the middle of this decade and tell me they don't rock as much as the Who, Tom Petty or Cheap Trick. Yeah, it doesn't rock the same but hey, times change. What stays the same is passion and determination and the feeling that the song you are hearing is the only song playing on Earth at this very moment. These bands and these songs may not do it for you but they do it for me. Don't give up, you'll find yours. There's enough "real" rock & roll out there for everyone.

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Thanks to George Orwell, 1984 seemed destined to be a gloomy, ominous year -- and there was some darkness, thanks to Echo & the Bunnymen and the Cure lurking in the background, but 1984 was much, much more than murky English mope rock. This was the year that gave us such blockbusters as Purple Rain, Born in the U.S.A., 1984, and Like a Virgin while also giving us such major underground touchstones as Let It Be, Reckoning, The Smiths, Zen Arcade, and Double Nickels on the Dime, as well as the first undisputed full-length hip-hop masterpiece, Run-D.M.C. — every one of them albums that defined the decade. But 1984 wasn’t just about canonical LPs. If anything, the singles of ‘84 were even greater than the albums, as this year saw a perfect storm of Top 40, album rock, MTV, and college radio hits, each one seeming better than the next.

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