By the time rock journalist Steven Hyden was born, in 1977, the Beatles had been broken up nearly as long as they had been together. The Rolling Stones were in Paris recording Some Girls, the band's last essential LP. The Who and Led Zeppelin would soon lose their drummers to pills and booze and would stop recording new music by the time Hyden was old enough to buy it for himself.

And yet Classic Rock, like The Dude, abides.