Monsters! Of! ROCK!

Tomorrow night at 9:00 (8:00 central) be sure to tune in to VH1 for the 2007 VH1 Rock Honors featuring live performances from this year's honorees. Luminaries of rock like:

ZZ Top

Heart

Ozzy Osbourne

AND

Genesis?

Seriously? This is the Rock Honors. You're honoring rock. You've got ZZ Top's southern-fried guitar sound. Great. You've got Heart; Nancy Wilson, one of the great female rock guitarists of all time. Awesome. You've got OZZY! Ozzy "Fucking" Osbourne. The man who practically invented heavy metal for fuck's sake. And then you follow all of that up with Genesis?

Well, wait a minute, Paul. Let's not be hasty. Maybe this is a reunion! Maybe this is tripped out, early '70s, Perter Gabriel in a giant paper mache frog costume, prog rock Genesis! At least that would be something!

Nope. No, it's just regular old boring, adult contemporary, Phil Collins, "Invisible Touch", "I Can't Dance" Genesis. BOOOOO times infinity plus one. Genesis is the total antithesis of rock. If we were to create a Thermometer of Rock, Ozzy and Black Sabbath would be a notch past the top, so hot that the thermometer would actually explode before reaching them, and Genesis would be Absolute Zero, the point at which all rocking ceases completely. For reference, this is just two degrees below James Taylor.

I guess this could be seen as a nod to VH1's Adult Contemporary roots. Let's not forget that way back in the mid-'90s, before they became a full time, nostalgia soaked clip show factory, VH1 used to play a lot of videos by guys like Kenny Loggins and, yes, Genesis. Still, come on, who are next year's VH1 Rock Honors going to be celebrating? Jimmy Buffet? Peter, Paul, and Mary? Raffi?

I think Rik from The Young Ones said it best: "I'm so bored I might as well be listening to Genesis!"

Only slightly less puzzling than this Genesis business is the fact that Alice in Chains will also be performing at the VH1 Rock Honors, and their lead singer has been dead for five years.