The 2008 TIME 100

The record business is over! there's no new rock 'n' roll on the radio! Kids couldn't care less about music! Quick, somebody call Alex and Eran. Yes, I mean Alex Rigopulos, 38, and Eran Egozy, 36, the Batman and Robin of Harmonix, who, with the video games Guitar Hero and now Rock Band, may have saved classic rock for generations to come. And before you make a snide comment, remember, some of my best friends are Classic Rockers.

Face it, folks, Rock Band is one of the ways kids will find music in the future, and the future is now. And I love that Rock Band allows people to act like real-life dysfunctional rock groups—you play either together or against one another. The game breaks down walls, allowing friends and family to rock out to punk, alternative, hard rock or whatever in a living room, or four strangers to connect from four different countries. In the history of rock 'n' roll, Rock Band may just turn out to be up there with the rise of FM radio, CDs or MTV. Taking a break from the wall-to-wall violence of most video games can't hurt either.

Best of all, while becoming an expert at matching the rhythm of a guitar or bass line won't make you able to really play (although you'll appreciate the role of the bass guitar for the first time), the game will actually create new drummers. Let this be the deathblow to those evil drum machines hanging around from that bloated era of musical horror we refer to as the '80s. Just when it looked as if a generation of teenagers might grow up without falling in love with Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Who or the Rolling Stones, Rock Band has pulled them back into the musical gumbo that ate their parents (and perhaps their grandparents). Vive la Rock Band!

Van Zandt plays guitar in Bruce Springsteen's band and acted on The Sopranos