Heavy Metal musicians love power ballads, mostly because they made a lot of money with them and they're afraid if they speak ill of them someone's going to repossess their cars. Fact: these songs paid for hairspray, makeup, platform boots, dry ice and, eventually, rehab. That kids are rediscovering the "magic" of the era isn't surprising when you consider how many kids in the 1980s were rediscovering the Grateful Dead.

At this point, I'm hoarding my Pearl Jam memories just so I will able to eBay my mind and retire in a few years. Can you stand it? I remember a world without the Stone Temple Pilots! It really existed. Just as there was once a world without Bon Jovi.

This list runs the gamut. From terrible to tolerable!

First, I would like to wish Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi a full recovery from lymphoma and hope he and the band will be taking the stage in 2012. Heavy Metal needs you, Tony.

Now, there's nothing like trying to do the impossible. With a genre that's been kicking around in some form since the early 1970s, distilling its essence into 25 essential tracks is essentially ridiculous. Because there are so few slots I established the rule that there could only be one track per band, except for Black Sabbath and Metallica because I make the rules and I like to be arbitrary. Classic antecedents to heavy metal such as the Beatles' "Helter Skelter," Jimi Hendrix's "Manic Depression" and Blue Cheer's "Summertime Blues" were passed over, while Led Zeppelin were allowed entry, since it made sense to me.

I admit I exist in an alternate reality where what's happening in the world often doesn't happen in my home. We have protective barriers and we use them. My own tastes are pretty lame. I like stuff that bores most people. But I enjoy spending most of my time staring at a wall.

Let's get this over with.

25) Tom Waits -- Bad As Me: The patron weirdo saint of NPR still makes music that sounds pretty good when you crank it up. Plenty dirty if a bit predictable. I don't know. That's not a bad thing. Imagine if Coke tasted differently every time they made it. Waits is like McDonald's for the hipster set. I dig it. Man.

24) Robyn Hitchcock -- Tromso, Kaptein: Hitchy slipped this one out while no one was watching, which isn't much different from anything else he's been doing for the past decade. Hitch isn't likely to have a blockbuster hit anytime soon. Or maybe he will. Maybe the world is changing and the U.S. will suddenly get British artists once again.

23) Marianne Faithfull