Rock music
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Rock music
Stylistic origins Rock and roll, electric blues, jazz, folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, soul
Cultural origins 1950s and 1960s, United Kingdom and United States
Typical instruments Vocals, electric guitar, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, drums, piano, synthesizer, keyboards
Derivative forms New Age music, synthpop
Subgenres
Alternative rock – Art rock – Baroque pop – Beat music – Britpop – Emo – Experimental rock – Garage rock – Glam rock – Gothic rock – Group Sounds – Grunge – Hard rock – Heartland rock – Heavy metal – Instrumental rock – Indie rock – Jangle pop – Krautrock – Madchester – Post-Britpop – Power pop – Progressive rock – Protopunk – Psychedelia – Punk rock – Soft rock – Southern rock – Surf music – Symphonic rock
(complete list)
Fusion genres
Aboriginal rock – Afro-rock – Anatolian rock – Bhangra rock – Blues rock – Country rock – Electronic rock – Flamenco-rock – Folk rock – Funk rock – Glam punk – Indo-rock – Industrial rock – Jazz fusion – Pop rock – Punta rock – Raga rock – Raï rock – Rap rock – Rockabilly – Rockoson – Samba-rock – Space rock – Stoner rock – Sufi rock
Regional scenes
Argentina – Armenia – Australia – Bangladesh – Belarus – Belgium – Bosnia and Herzegovina – Brazil – Canada – Chile – China – Colombia – Cuba – Croatia – Denmark – Dominican Republic – Ecuador – Estonia – Finland – France – Greece – Germany – Hungary – Iceland – India – Indonesia – Ireland – Israel – Italy – Japan – Spanish-speaking world – Latvia – Lithuania – Malaysia – Mexico – Nepal – New Zealand – Norway – Pakistan - Peru – Philippines – Poland – Portugal – Russia – Serbia – Slovenia – Spain – Sweden – Switzerland – Tatar – Thailand – Turkey – Ukraine – United Kingdom – United States – Uruguay – Venezuela – SFR Yugoslavia – Zambia
Other topics
Backbeat – Rock opera – Rock band – Hall of Fame – Social impact – List of rock music terms
Rock music is a genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the 1950s, and developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and later, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States.[1][2][3] It has its roots in 1940s' and 1950s' rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources.
Musically, rock has centered around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.
By the late 1960s, referred to as the "golden age"[1] or "classic rock"[2] period, a number of distinct rock music sub-genres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock, folk rock, country rock, and jazz-rock fusion, many of which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock influenced by the counter-cultural psychedelic scene. New genres that emerged from this scene included progressive rock, which extended the artistic elements; glam rock, which highlighted showmanship and visual style; and the diverse and enduring major sub-genre of heavy metal, which emphasized volume, power, and speed. In the second half of the 1970s, punk rock both intensified and reacted against some of these trends to produce a raw, energetic form of music characterized by overt political and social critiques. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of other sub-genres, including new wave, post-punk and eventually the alternative rock movement. From the 1990s alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop, and indie rock. Further fusion sub-genres have since emerged, including pop punk, rap rock, and rap metal, as well as conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including the garage rock/post-punk and synthpop revivals at the beginning of the new millennium.
Rock music has also embodied and served as the vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major sub-cultures including mods and rockers in the UK and the hippie counterculture that spread out from San Francisco in the US in the 1960s. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of the protest song, rock music has been associated with political activism as well as changes in social attitudes to race, sex and drug use, and is often seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult consumerism and conformity.
Contents [hide]
1 Characteristics
2 Origins
2.1 Rock and roll
2.2 "In-between years"
2.3 Surf music
3 Golden age
3.1 British Invasion
3.2 Garage rock
3.3 Pop rock
3.4 Blues rock
3.5 Folk rock
3.6 Psychedelic rock
4 Progression
4.1 Roots rock
4.2 Progressive rock
4.3 Jazz rock
4.4 Glam rock
4.5 Soft rock, hard rock and early heavy metal
4.6 Christian rock
5 Punk
5.1 Punk rock
5.2 New wave
5.3 Post-punk
5.4 New waves and genres in heavy metal
5.5 Heartland rock
5.6 Emergence of alternative rock
6 Alternative
6.1 Grunge
6.2 Britpop
6.3 Post-grunge
6.4 Pop punk
6.5 Indie rock
6.6 Alternative metal, rap rock and nu metal
6.7 Post-Britpop
7 2000s
7.1 Post-hardcore and emo
7.2 Garage rock/post-punk revival
7.3 Contemporary heavy metal, metalcore and retro-metal
7.4 Digital electronic rock
8 Social impact
9 See also
10 References
11 Further Reading
12 External links
Characteristics
Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2006, showing a quartet lineup for a rock band of a lead vocalist, guitarist, bassist, and drummer
The sound of rock is traditionally centered around the electric guitar, which emerged in its modern form in the 1950s with the popularization of rock and roll.[4] The sound of an electric guitar in rock music is typically supported by an electric bass guitar pioneered in jazz music in the same era,[5] and percussion produced from a drum kit that combines drums and cymbals.[6] This trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of others, particularly keyboards such as the piano, Hammond organ and synthesizers.[7] A group of musicians performing rock music is termed a rock band or rock group and typically consists of between two and five members. Classically, a rock band takes the form of a quartet whose members cover one or more roles, including vocalist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass guitarist, drummer and occasionally that of keyboard player or other instrumentalist.[8]
Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four.[9] Melodies are often derived from older musical modes, including the Dorian and Mixolydian, as well as major and minor modes. Harmonies range from the common triad to parallel fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions.[9] Rock songs from the mid-1960s onwards often used the verse-chorus structure derived from blues and folk music, but there has been considerable variation from this model.[10] Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock.[11] Because of its complex history and tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that "it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition."[12]
A simple 4/4 drum pattern common in rock music Play (help·info)
Unlike many earlier styles of popular music, rock lyrics have dealt with a wide range of themes in addition to romantic love: including sex, rebellion against "The Establishment", social concerns and life styles.[9] These themes were inherited from a variety of sources, including the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music and rhythm and blues.[13] Music journalist Robert Christgau characterizes rock lyrics as a "cool medium" with simple diction and repeated refrains, and asserts that rock's primary "function" "pertains to music, or, more generally, noise."[14] The predominance of white, male and often middle class musicians in rock music has often been noted[15] and rock has been seen as an appropriation of black musical forms for a young, white and largely male audience.[16] As a result it has been seen as articulating the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics.[17]
Since the term rock began to be used in preference to rock and roll from the mid-1960s, it has often been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics, but from which it is often distanced by an emphasis on musicianship, live performance and a focus on serious and progressive themes as part of an ideology of authenticity that is frequently combined with an awareness of the genre's history and development.[18] According to Simon Frith "rock was something more than pop, something more than rock and roll. Rock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with the romantic concept of art as artistic expression, original and sincere".[18] In the new millennium the term rock has sometimes been used as a blanket term including forms such as pop music, reggae music, soul music, and even hip hop, with which it has been influenced but often contrasted through much of its history.[19]
Origins
Rock and roll
Main article: Rock and roll
See also: Origins of rock and roll and Rockabilly
The foundations of rock music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to much of the rest of the world. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various black musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country and western.[20] In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, and is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music.[21]
Elvis Presley in a promotion shot for Jailhouse Rock in 1957
Debate surrounds which record should be considered the first rock and roll record. Contenders include Goree Carter's "Rock Awhile" (1949);[22] Jimmy Preston's "Rock the Joint" (1949), which was later covered by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1952;[23] and "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (in fact, Ike Turner and his band The Kings of Rhythm), recorded by Sam Phillips for Sun Records in 1951.[24] Four years later, Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" (1955) became the first rock and roll song to top Billboard magazine's main sales and airplay charts, and opened the door worldwide for this new wave of popular culture.[25]
It has been argued that "That's All Right (Mama)" (1954), Elvis Presley's first single for Sun Records in Memphis, was the first rock and roll record,[26] but, at the same time, Big Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle & Roll", later covered by Haley, was already at the top of the Billboard R&B charts. Other artists with early rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Gene Vincent.[24] Soon rock and roll was the major force in American record sales and crooners, such as Eddie Fisher, Perry Como, and Patti Page, who had dominated the previous decade of popular music, found their access to the pop charts significantly curtailed.[27]
Rock and roll has been seen as leading to a number of distinct sub-genres, including rockabilly, combining rock and roll with "hillbilly" country music, which was usually played and recorded in the mid-1950s by white singers such as Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and with the greatest commercial success, Elvis Presley.[28] In contrast doo wop placed an emphasis on multi-part vocal harmonies and meaningless backing lyrics (from which the genre later gained its name), which were usually supported with light instrumentation and had its origins in 1930s and '40s African American vocal groups.[29] Acts like The Crows, The Penguins, The El Dorados and The Turbans all scored major hits, and groups like The Platters, with songs including "The Great Pretender" (1955), and The Coasters with humorous songs like "Yakety Yak" (195
, ranked among the most successful rock and roll acts of the period.[30]
The era also saw the growth in popularity of the electric guitar, and the development of a specifically rock and roll style of playing through such exponents as Chuck Berry, Link Wray, and Scotty Moore.[31] The use of distortion, pioneered by electric blues guitarists such as Guitar Slim,[32] Willie Johnson and Pat Hare in the early 1950s,[33] was popularized by Chuck Berry in the mid-1950s.[34] The use of power chords, pioneered by Willie Johnson and Pat Hare in the early 1950s,[33] was popularized by Link Wray in the late 1950s.[35]
In the United Kingdom, the trad jazz and folk movements brought visiting blues music artists to Britain.[36] Lonnie Donegan's 1955 hit "Rock Island Line" was a major influence and helped to develop the trend of skiffle music groups throughout the country, many of which, including John Lennon's The Quarrymen, moved on to play rock and roll.[37]
Commentators have traditionally perceived a decline of rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By 1959, the death of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Valens in a plane crash, the departure of Elvis for the army, the retirement of Little Richard to become a preacher, prosecutions of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry and the breaking of the payola scandal (which implicated major figures, including Alan Freed, in bribery and corruption in promoting individual acts or songs), gave a sense that the rock and roll era established up to that point had come to an end.[24]
"In-between years"
Main article: Rock and roll
See also: Doo Wop, British rock and roll, and Soul music
Chubby Checker in 2005
The period of the later 1950s and early 1960s, between the end of the initial period of innovation and what became known in the US as the "British Invasion", has traditionally been seen as an era of hiatus for rock and roll. More recently some authors have emphasised important innovations and trends in this period without which future developments would not have been possible.[38][39] While early rock and roll, particularly through the advent of rockabilly, saw the greatest commercial success for male and white performers, in this era the genre was dominated by black and female artists. Rock and roll had not disappeared at the end of the 1950s and some of its energy can be seen in the Twist dance craze of the early '60s, mainly benefiting the career of Chubby Checker.[39] Having died down in the late 1950s, doo wop enjoyed a revival in the same period, with hits for acts like The Marcels, The Capris, Maurice Williams and Shep and the Limelights.[30] The rise of girl groups like The Chantels, The Shirelles and The Crystals placed an emphasis on harmonies and polished production that was in contrast to earlier rock and roll.[40] Some of the most significant girl group hits were products of the Brill Building Sound, named after the block in New York where many songwriters were based, which included the number 1 hit for the Shirelles "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" in 1960, penned by the partnership of Gerry Goffin and Carole King.[41]
Cliff Richard had the first British rock and roll hit with "Move It", effectively ushering in the sound of British rock.[42] At the start of the 1960s, his backing group The Shadows was the most successful group recording instrumentals.[43] While rock 'n' roll was fading into lightweight pop and ballads, British rock groups at clubs and local dances, heavily influenced by blues-rock pioneers like Alexis Korner, were starting to play with an intensity and drive seldom found in white American acts.[44]
Also significant was the advent of soul music as a major commercial force. Developing out of rhythm and blues with a re-injection of gospel music and pop, led by pioneers like Ray Charles and Sam Cooke from the mid-1950s, by the early '60s figures like Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder were dominating the R&B charts and breaking through into the main pop charts, helping to accelerate their desegregation, while Motown and Stax/Volt Records were becoming major forces in the record industry.[45] All of these elements, including the close harmonies of doo wop and girl groups, the carefully crafted song-writing of the Brill Building Sound and the polished production values of soul, have been seen as influencing the Merseybeat sound, particularly the early work of The Beatles, and through them the form of later rock music.[46] Some historians of music have also pointed to important and innovative technical developments that built on rock and roll in this period, including the electronic treatment of sound by such innovators as Joe Meek, and the elaborate production methods of the Wall of Sound pursued by Phil Spector.[39]
Surf music
Main article: Surf music
The instrumental rock and roll pioneered by performers such as Duane Eddy, Link Wray, and The Ventures was developed by Dick Dale who added distinctive "wet" reverb, rapid alternate picking, as well as Middle Eastern and Mexican influences, producing the regional hit "Let's Go Trippin'" in 1961 and launching the surf music craze, following up with songs like "Misirlou" (1962).[47][48] Like Dale and his Del-Tones, most early surf bands were formed in Southern California, including the Bel-Airs, the Challengers, and Eddie & the Showmen.[48] The Chantays scored a top ten national hit with "Pipeline" in 1963 and probably the best known surf tune was 1963's "Wipe Out", by the Surfaris, which hit number 2 and number 10 on the Billboard charts in 1965.[49]
The Beach Boys performing in 1964
Groups which crossed over to this genre included The Astronauts, from Boulder, Colorado, The Trashmen, from Minneapolis, Minnesota, who had a number 4 hit with "Surfin Bird" in 1964 and The Rivieras from South Bend, Indiana, who reached number 5 in 1964 with "California Sun".[47] The Atlantics, from Sydney, New South Wales, made a significant contribution to the genre, with their hit "Bombora" (1963).[47] European instrumental bands around this time generally focused more on the more rock and roll style played by The Shadows, but The Dakotas, who were the British backing band for Merseybeat singer Billy J. Kramer, gained some attention as surf musicians with "Cruel Sea" (1963), which was later covered by American instrumental surf bands, including The Ventures.[50]
Surf music achieved its greatest commercial success as vocal music, particularly the work of the Beach Boys, formed in 1961 in Southern California. Their early albums included both instrumental surf rock (among them covers of music by Dick Dale) and vocal songs, drawing on rock and roll and doo wop and the close harmonies of vocal pop acts like the Four Freshmen.[47] Their first chart hit, "Surfin'" in 1962 reached the Billboard top 100 and helped make the surf music craze a national phenomenon.[51] From 1963 the group began to leave surfing behind as subject matter as Brian Wilson became their major composer and producer, moving on to the more general themes of male adolescence including cars and girls in songs like "Fun, Fun, Fun" (1964) and "California Girls" (1965).[51] Other vocal surf acts followed, including one-hit wonders like Ronny & the Daytonas with "G. T. O." (1964) and Rip Chords with "Hey Little Cobra", which both reached the top ten, but the only other act to achieve sustained success with the formula were Jan & Dean, who had a number 1 hit with "Surf City" (co-written with Brian Wilson) in 1963.[47] The surf music craze and the careers of almost all surf acts was effectively ended by the arrival of the British Invasion from 1964.[47] Only the Beach Boys were able to sustain a creative career into the mid-1960s, producing a string of hit singles and albums, including the highly regarded Pet Sounds in 1966, which made them, arguably, the only American rock or pop act that could rival The Beatles.[51]
Golden age
British Invasion
Main article: British Invasion
See also: Beat music, British rhythm and blues, and British rock
The Beatles arriving in New York in January 1964 at the beginning of the British Invasion
By the end of 1962, what would become the British rock scene had started with beat groups like The Beatles, Gerry & The Pacemakers and The Searchers from Liverpool and Freddie and the Dreamers, Herman's Hermits and The Hollies from Manchester. They drew on a wide range of American influences including soul, rhythm and blues and surf music,[52] initially reinterpreting standard American tunes and playing for dancers. Bands like The Animals from Newcastle and Them from Belfast,[53] and particularly those from London like The Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds, were much more directly influenced by rhythm and blues and later blues music.[54] Soon these groups were composing their own material, combining US forms of music and infusing it with a high energy beat. Beat bands tended towards "bouncy, irresistible melodies", while early British rhythm and blues acts tended towards less sexually innocent, more aggressive songs, often adopting an anti-establishment stance. There was, however, particularly in the early stages, considerable musical crossover between the two tendencies.[55] By 1963, led by the Beatles, beat groups had begun to achieve national success in Britain, soon to be followed into the charts by the more rhythm and blues focused acts.[56]
"I Want to Hold Your Hand" was the Beatles' first number 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, spending 7 weeks at the top and a total of 15 weeks on the chart.[57][58] Their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February, drawing an estimated 73 million viewers (at the time a record for an American television program) often is considered a milestone in American pop culture. The Beatles went on to become the biggest selling rock band of all time and they were followed into the US charts by numerous British bands.[55] During the next two years British acts dominated their own and the US charts with Peter and Gordon, The Animals, Manfred Mann, Petula Clark, Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Herman's Hermits, The Rolling Stones, The Troggs, and Donovan all having one or more number 1 singles.[57] Other major acts that were part of the invasion included The Kinks and The Dave Clark Five.[59][60]
The British Invasion helped internationalize the production of rock and roll, opening the door for subsequent British (and Irish) performers to achieve international success.[61] In America it arguably spelled the end of instrumental surf music, vocal girl groups and (for a time) the teen idols, that had dominated the American charts in the late 1950s and '60s.[62] It dented the careers of established R&B acts like Fats Domino and Chubby Checker and even temporarily derailed the chart success of surviving rock and roll acts, including Elvis.[63] The British Invasion also played a major part in the rise of a distinct genre of rock music, and cemented the primacy of the rock group, based on guitars and drums and producing their own material as singer-songwriters.[29]
Garage rock
Main article: Garage rock
Garage rock was a form of amateurish rock music, particularly prevalent in North America in the mid-1960s and so called because of the perception that it was rehearsed in a suburban family garage.[64][65] Garage rock songs revolved around the traumas of high school life, with songs about "lying girls" being particularly common.[66] The lyrics and delivery were more aggressive than was common at the time, often with growled or shouted vocals that dissolved into incoherent screaming.[64] They ranged from crude one-chord music (like the Seeds) to near-studio musician quality (including the Knickerbockers, the Remains, and the Fifth Estate). There were also regional variations in many parts of the country with flourishing scenes particularly in California and Texas.[66] The Pacific Northwest states of Washington and Oregon had perhaps the most defined regional sound.[67]
The D-Men (later The Fifth Estate) in 1964
The style had been evolving from regional scenes as early as 1958. "Tall Cool One" (1959) by The Wailers and "Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen (1963) are mainstream examples of the genre in its formative stages.[68] By 1963, garage band singles were creeping into the national charts in greater numbers, including Paul Revere and the Raiders (Boise),[69] the Trashmen (Minneapolis)[70] and the Rivieras (South Bend, Indiana).[71] Other influential garage bands, such as the Sonics (Tacoma, Washington), never reached the Billboard Hot 100.[72] In this early period many bands were heavily influenced by surf rock and there was a cross-pollination between garage rock and frat rock, sometimes viewed as merely a sub-genre of garage rock.[73]
The British Invasion of 1964–66 greatly influenced garage bands, providing them with a national audience, leading many (often surf or hot rod groups) to adopt a British Invasion lilt, and encouraging many more groups to form.[66] Thousands of garage bands were extant in the US and Canada during the era and hundreds produced regional hits.[66] Examples include: "The Witch" by Tacoma's The Sonics (1965), "Where You Gonna Go" by Detroit's Unrelated Segments (1967), "Girl I Got News for You" by Miami's Birdwatchers (1966) and "1–2–5" by Montreal's The Haunted. Despite scores of bands being signed to major or large regional labels, most were commercial failures. It is generally agreed that garage rock peaked both commercially and artistically around 1966.[66] By 1968 the style largely disappeared from the national charts and at the local level as amateur musicians faced college, work or the draft.[66] New styles had evolved to replace garage rock (including blues rock, progressive rock and country rock).[66] In Detroit garage rock stayed alive until the early '70s, with bands like the MC5 and The Stooges, who employed a much more aggressive style. These bands began to be labelled punk rock and are now often seen as proto-punk or proto-hard rock.[74]
Pop rock
Main article: Pop rock
See also: Pop music and Power pop
The Everly Brothers in 2006
The term pop has been used since the early 20th century to refer to popular music in general, but from the mid-1950s it began to be used for a distinct genre, aimed at a youth market, often characterized as a softer alternative to rock and roll.[75][76] In the aftermath of the British Invasion, from about 1967, it was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock music, to describe a form that was more commercial, ephemeral and accessible.[18] In contrast rock music was seen as focusing on extended works, particularly albums, was often associated with particular sub-cultures (like the counter-culture), placed an emphasis on artistic values and "authenticity", stressed live performance and instrumental or vocal virtuosity and was often seen as encapsulating progressive developments rather than simply reflecting existing trends.[18][75][76][77]
Nevertheless much pop and rock music has been very similar in sound, instrumentation and even lyrical content. The terms "pop-rock" and "power pop" have been used to describe more commercially successful music that uses elements from, or the form of, rock music.[78] Pop-rock has been defined as an "upbeat variety of rock music represented by artists such as Elton John, Paul McCartney, The Everly Brothers, Rod Stewart, Chicago, and Peter Frampton."[79] The term power pop was coined by Pete Townshend of The Who in 1966, but not much used until it was applied to bands like Badfinger in the 1970s, who proved some of the most commercially successful of the period.[80] Throughout its history there have been rock acts that have used elements of pop, and pop artists who have used rock music as a basis for their work, or striven for rock "authenticity".
Blues rock
Main article: Blues rock
See also: British blues
Although the first impact of the British Invasion on American popular music was through beat and R&B based acts, the impetus was soon taken up by a second wave of bands that drew their inspiration more directly from American blues, including the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds.[81] British blues musicians of the late 1950s and early '60s had been inspired by the acoustic playing of figures such as Lead Belly, who was a major influence on the Skiffle craze, and Robert Johnson.[82] Increasingly they adopted a loud amplified sound, often centered around the electric guitar, based on the Chicago blues, particularly after the tour of Britain by Muddy Waters in 1958, which prompted Cyril Davies and guitarist Alexis Korner to form the band Blues Incorporated.[83] The band involved and inspired many of the figures of the subsequent British blues boom, including members of the Rolling Stones and Cream, combining blues standards and forms with rock instrumentation and emphasis.[44]
Eric Clapton performing in Barcelona in 1974
The other key focus for British blues was around John Mayall who formed the Bluesbreakers, whose members included Eric Clapton (after his departure from The Yardbirds) and later Peter Green. Particularly significant was the release of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (Beano) album (1966), considered one of the seminal British blues recordings and the sound of which was much emulated in both Britain and the United States.[84] Eric Clapton went on to form supergroups Cream, Blind Faith and Derek and the Dominos, followed by an extensive solo career that helped bring blues rock into the mainstream.[83] Green, along with the Bluesbreaker's rhythm section Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, formed Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, who enjoyed some of the greatest commercial success in the genre.[83] In the late '60s Jeff Beck, also an alumnus of the Yardbirds, moved blues rock in the direction of heavy rock with his band, The Jeff Beck Group.[83] The last Yardbirds guitarist was Jimmy Page, who went on to form The New Yardbirds which rapidly became Led Zeppelin. Many of the songs on their first three albums, and occasionally later in their careers, were expansions on traditional blues songs.[83]
In America, blues rock had been pioneered in the early 1960s by guitarist Lonnie Mack,[85] but the genre began to take off in the mid-'60s as acts developed a sound similar to British blues musicians. Key acts included Paul Butterfield (whose band acted like Mayall's Bluesbreakers in Britain as a starting point for many successful musicians), Canned Heat, the early Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, The J. Geils Band and Jimi Hendrix with his power trios, The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Band of Gypsys, whose guitar virtuosity and showmanship would be among the most emulated of the decade.[83] Blues rock bands from the southern states, like Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and ZZ Top, incorporated country elements into their style to produce distinctive Southern rock.[86]
Early blues rock bands often emulated jazz, playing long, involved improvisations, which would later be a major element of progressive rock. From about 1967 bands like Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience had begun to move away from purely blues-based music into psychedelia.[87] By the 1970s, blues rock had become heavier and more riff-based, exemplified by the work of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, and the lines between blues rock and hard rock "were barely visible",[87] as bands began recording rock-style albums.[87] The genre was continued in the 1970s by figures such as George Thorogood and Pat Travers,[83] but, particularly on the British scene (except perhaps for the advent of groups such as Status Quo and Foghat who moved towards a form of high energy and repetitive boogie rock), bands became focused on heavy metal innovation, and blues rock began to slip out of the mainstream.[88]
Folk rock
Main article: Folk rock
See also: Electric folk
Joan Baez and Bob Dylan in 1963
By the 1960s, the scene that had developed out of the American folk music revival had grown to a major movement, utilising traditional music and new compositions in a traditional style, usually on acoustic instruments.[89] In America the genre was pioneered by figures such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and often identified with progressive or labor politics.[89] In the early sixties figures such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan had come to the fore in this movement as singer-songwriters.[90] Dylan had begun to reach a mainstream audience with hits including "Blowin' in the Wind" (1963) and "Masters of War" (1963), which brought "protest songs" to a wider public,[91] but, although beginning to influence each other, rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with mutually exclusive audiences.[92]
Early attempts to combine elements of folk and rock included the Animals "House of the Rising Sun" (1964), which was the first commercially successful folk song to be recorded with rock and roll instrumentation[93] and the Beatles "I'm a Loser" (1964), arguably the first Beatles song to be influenced directly by Dylan.[94] The folk rock movement is usually thought to have taken off with The Byrds' recording of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" which topped the charts in 1965.[92] With members who had been part of the cafe-based folk scene in Los Angeles, the Byrds adopted rock instrumentation, including drums and 12-string Rickenbacker guitars, which became a major element in the sound of the genre.[92] Later that year Dylan adopted electric instruments, much to the outrage of many folk purists, with his "Like a Rolling Stone" becoming a US hit single.[92] Folk rock particularly took off in California, where it led acts like The Mamas & the Papas and Crosby, Stills and Nash to move to electric instrumentation, and in New York, where it spawned performers including The Lovin' Spoonful and Simon and Garfunkel, with the latter's acoustic "The Sounds of Silence" (1965) being remixed with rock instruments to be the first of many hits.[92]
These acts directly influenced British performers like Donovan and Fairport Convention.[92] In 1969 Fairport Convention abandoned their mixture of American covers and Dylan-influenced songs to play traditional English folk music on electric instruments.[95] This electric folk was taken up by bands including Pentangle, Steeleye Span and The Albion Band, which turn prompted Irish groups like Horslips and Scottish acts like the JSD Band, Spencer's Feat and later Five Hand Reel, to use their traditional music to create a brand of Celtic rock in the early 1970s.[96]
Folk rock reached its peak of commercial popularity in the period 1967–68, before many acts moved off in a variety of directions, including Dylan and the Byrds, who began to develop country rock.[97] However, the hybridization of folk and rock has been seen as having a major influence on the development of rock music, bringing in elements of psychedelia, and helping to develop the ideas of the singer-songwriter, the protest song and concepts of "authenticity".[92][98]
Psychedelic rock
Main article: Psychedelic rock
See also: Raga rock
Jimi Hendrix performing on Dutch TV in 1967
Psychedelic music's LSD-inspired vibe began in the folk scene, with the New York-based Holy Modal Rounders using the term in their 1964 recording of "Hesitation Blues".[99] The first group to advertise themselves as psychedelic rock were the 13th Floor Elevators from Texas, at the end of 1965; producing an album that made their direction clear, with The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators the following year.[99] The Beatles introduced many of the major elements of the psychedelic sound to audiences in this period, with "I Feel Fine" using guitar feedback; in late 1965 the Rubber Soul album included the use of a sitar on "Norwegian Wood" and they employed backmasking on their 1966 single B-side "Rain" and other tracks that appeared on their Revolver album later that year.[100]
Psychedelic rock particularly took off in California's emerging music scene as groups followed the Byrds from folk to folk rock from 1965.[100] The psychedelic life style had already developed in San Francisco and particularly prominent products of the scene were The Grateful Dead, Country Joe and the Fish, The Great Society and Jefferson Airplane.[100] The Byrds rapidly progressed from purely folk rock in 1966 with their single "Eight Miles High", widely taken to be a reference to drug use. In Britain arguably the most influential band in the genre were The Yardbirds,[100] who, with Jeff Beck as their guitarist, increasingly moved into psychedelic territory, adding up-tempo improvised "rave ups", Gregorian chant and world music influences to songs including "Still I'm Sad" (1965) and "Over Under Sideways Down" (1966).[101] From 1966 the UK underground scene based in North London, supported new acts including Pink Floyd, Traffic and Soft Machine.[102] The same year saw Donovan's folk-influenced hit album Sunshine Superman, considered one of the first psychedelic pop records, as well as the débuts of blues rock bands Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, whose extended guitar-heavy jams became a key feature of psychedelia.[100]
Psychedelic rock reached its apogee in the last years of the decade. 1967 saw the Beatles release their definitive psychedelic statement in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, including the controversial track "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and the Rolling Stones responded later that year with Their Satanic Majesties Request.[100] Pink Floyd produced what is usually seen as their best psychedelic work The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.[100] In America the Summer of Love was prefaced by the Human Be-In event and reached its peak at the Monterey Pop Festival, the latter helping to make major American stars of Jimi Hendrix and The Who, whose single "I Can See for Miles" delved into psychedelic territory.[103] Key recordings included Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and The Doors' Strange Days.[104] These trends climaxed in the 1969 Woodstock festival, which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts, but by the end of the decade psychedelic rock was in retreat. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac and Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd were early "acid casualties", the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream broke up before the end of the decade and many surviving acts moved away from psychedelia into more back-to-basics "roots rock", the wider experimentation of progressive rock, or riff laden heavy rock.[100]
Progression
Roots rock
Main article: Roots rock
See also: Country rock and Southern rock
Roots rock is the term now used to describe a move away from what some saw as the excesses of the psychedelic scene, to a more basic form of rock and roll that incorporated its original influences, particularly country and folk music, leading to the creation of country rock and Southern rock.[105] In 1966 Bob Dylan went to Nashville to record the album Blonde on Blonde.[106] This, and subsequent more clearly country-influenced albums, have been seen as creating the genre of country folk, a route pursued by a number of, largely acoustic, folk musicians.[106] Other acts that followed the back-to-basics trend were the Canadian group The Band and the California-based Creedence Clearwater Revival, both of which mixed basic rock and roll with folk, country and blues, to be among the most successful and influential bands of the late 1960s.[107] The same movement saw the beginning of the recording careers of Californian solo artists like Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt and Lowell George,[108] and influenced the work of established performers such as the Rolling Stones' Beggar's Banquet (196 and the Beatles' Let It Be (1970).[100]
The Eagles during their 2008–2009 Long Road out of Eden Tour
In 1968 Gram Parsons recorded Safe at Home with the International Submarine Band, arguably the first true country-rock album.[109] Later that year he joined the Byrds for Sweetheart of the Rodeo (196, generally considered one of the most influential recordings in the genre.[109] The Byrds continued in the same vein, but Parsons left to be joined by another ex-Byrds member Chris Hillman in forming The Flying Burrito Brothers who helped establish the respectability and parameters of the genre, before Parsons departed to pursue a solo career.[109] Bands in California that adopted country rock included Hearts and Flowers, Poco and New Riders of the Purple Sage,[109] the Beau Brummels[109] and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.[110] Some performers also enjoyed a renaissance by adopting country sounds, including: the Everly Brothers; one-time teen idol Rick Nelson who became the frontman for the Stone Canyon Band; former Monkee Mike Nesmith who formed the First National Band; and Neil Young.[109] The Dillards were, unusually, a country act, who moved towards rock music.[109] The greatest commercial success for country rock came in the 1970s, with artist including the Doobie Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles (made up of members of the Burritos, Poco and Stone Canyon Band), who emerged as one of the most successful rock acts of all time, producing albums that included Hotel California (1976).[111]
The founders of Southern rock are usually thought to be the Allman Brothers Band, who developed a distinctive sound, largely derived from blues rock, but incorporating elements of boogie, soul, and country in the early 1970s.[86] The most successful act to follow them were Lynyrd Skynyrd, who helped establish the "Good ol' boy" image of the sub-genre and the general shape of 1970s' guitar rock.[86] Their successors included the fusion/progressive instrumentalists Dixie Dregs, the more country-influenced Outlaws, jazz-leaning Wet Willie and (incorporating elements of R&B and gospel) the Ozark Mountain Daredevils.[86] After the loss of original members of the Allmans and Lynyrd Skynyrd, the genre began to fade in popularity in the late 1970s, but was sustained the 1980s with acts like .38 Special, Molly Hatchet and The Marshall Tucker Band.[86]
Progressive rock
Main article: Progressive rock
See also: Art rock, Electronic rock, and Kraut rock
Progressive rock, a term sometimes used interchangeably with art rock, was an attempt to move beyond established musical formulas by experimenting with different instruments, song types, and forms.[112] From the mid-1960s The Left Banke, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Beach Boys, had pioneered the inclusion of harpsichords, wind and string sections on their recordings to produce a form of Baroque rock and can be heard in singles like Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" (1967), with its Bach inspired introduction.[113] The Moody Blues used a full orchestra on their album Days of Future Passed (1967) and subsequently created orchestral sounds with synthesisers.[112] Classical orchestration, keyboards and synthesisers were a frequent edition to the established rock format of guitars, bass and drums in subsequent progressive rock.[114]
Prog-rock band Yes performing in concert in Indianapolis in 1977
Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy and science fiction.[115] The Pretty Things' SF Sorrow (196, The Who's Tommy (1969) and The Kinks' Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969) introduced the format of rock operas and opened the door to concept albums, often telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme.[116] King Crimson's 1969 début album, In the Court of the Crimson King, which mixed powerful guitar riffs and mellotron, with jazz and symphonic music, is often taken as the key recording in progressive rock, helping the widespread adoption of the genre in the early 1970s among existing blues-rock and psychedelic bands, as well as newly formed acts.[112]
The vibrant Canterbury scene saw acts following Soft Machine from psychedelia, through jazz influences, toward more expansive hard rock, including Caravan, Hatfield and the North, Gong, and National Health.[117] Greater commercial success was enjoyed by Pink Floyd, who also moved away from psychedelia after the departure of Syd Barrett in 1968, with Dark Side of the Moon (1973), seen as a masterpiece of the genre, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time.[118] There was an emphasis on instrumental virtuosity, with Yes showcasing the skills of both guitarist Steve Howe and keyboard player Rick Wakeman, while Emerson, Lake & Palmer were a supergroup who produced some of the genre's most technically demanding work.[112] Jethro Tull and Genesis both pursued very different, but distinctly English, brands of music.[119] Renaissance, formed in 1969 by ex-Yardbirds Jim McCarty and Keith Relf, evolved into a high-concept band featuring the three-octave voice of Annie Haslam.[120] Most British bands depended on a relatively small cult following, but a handful, including Pink Floyd, Genesis and Jethro Tull, managed to produce top ten singles at home and break the American market.[121]
The American brand of prog rock varied from the eclectic and innovative Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart and Blood, Sweat & Tears,[122] to more pop rock orientated bands like Boston, Foreigner, Kansas, Journey and Styx.[112] These, beside British bands Supertramp and ELO, all demonstrated a prog rock influence and while ranking among the most commercially successful acts of the 1970s, issuing in the era of pomp or arena rock, which would last until the costs of complex shows (often with theatrical staging and special effects), would be replaced by more economical rock festivals as major live venues in the 1990s.[123]
The instrumental strand of the genre resulted in albums like Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (1973), the first record, and worldwide hit, for the Virgin Records label, which became a mainstay of the genre.[112] Instrumental rock was particularly significant in continental Europe, allowing bands like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Can and Faust to circumvent the language barrier.[124] Their synthesiser-heavy "Kraut rock", along with the work of Brian Eno (for a time the keyboard player with Roxy Music), would be a major influence on subsequent synth rock.[112] With the advent of punk rock and technological changes in the late 1970s, progressive rock was increasingly dismissed as pretentious and overblown.[125][126] Many bands broke up, but some, including Genesis, ELP, Yes, and Pink Floyd, regularly scored top ten albums with successful accompanying worldwide tours.[74] Some bands which emerged in the aftermath of punk, such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Ultravox and Simple Minds, showed the influence of prog, as well as their more usually recognized punk influences.[127]
Jazz rock
Main article: Jazz rock
Jaco Pastorius of Weather Report in 1980
In the late 1960s jazz rock emerged as a distinct sub-genre out of the blues rock, psychedelic and progressive rock scenes, mixing the power of rock with the musical complexity and improvisational elements of jazz. Many early US rock and roll musicians had begun in jazz and carried some of these elements into the new music. In Britain the sub-genre of blues rock, and many of its leading figures, like Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce of Cream, had emerged from the British jazz scene. Often highlighted as the first true jazz-rock recording is the only album by the relatively obscure New York-based The Free Spirits with Out of Sight and Sound (1966). The first group of bands to self-consciously use the label were R&B oriented white rock bands that made use of jazzy horn sections, like Electric Flag, Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago, to become some of the most commercially successful acts of the later 1960s and early 1970s.[128]
British acts to emerge in the same period from the blues scene, to make use of the tonal and improvisational aspects of jazz, included Nucleus[129] and the Graham Bond and John Mayall spin-off Colosseum. From the psychedelic rock and the Canterbury scenes came Soft Machine, who, it has been suggested, produced one of the artistically successfully fusions of the two genres. Perhaps the most critically acclaimed fusion came from the jazz side of the equation, with Miles Davis, particularly influenced by the work of Hendrix, incorporating rock instrumentation into his sound for the album Bitches Brew (1970). It was a major influence on subsequent rock-influenced jazz artists, including Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea and Weather Report.[128] The genre began to fade in the late 1970s, as a mellower form of fusion began to take its audience,[130] but acts like Steely Dan,[130] Frank Zappa and Joni Mitchell recorded significant jazz-influenced albums in this period, and it has continued to be a major influence on rock music.[128]
Glam rock
Main article: Glam rock
David Bowie during the Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders Tour in 1972
Glam rock emerged out of the English psychedelic and art rock scenes of the late 1960s and can be seen as both an extension of and reaction against those trends.[131] Musically diverse, varying between the simple rock and roll revivalism of figures like Alvin Stardust to the complex art rock of Roxy Music, and can be seen as much as a fashion as a musical sub-genre.[131] Visually it was a mesh of various styles, ranging from 1930s Hollywood glamor, through 1950s pin-up sex appeal, pre-war Cabaret theatrics, Victorian literary and symbolist styles, science fiction, to ancient and occult mysticism and mythology; manifesting itself in outrageous clothes, makeup, hairstyles, and platform-soled boots.[132] Glam is most noted for its sexual and gender ambiguity and representations of androgyny, beside extensive use of theatrics.[133] It was prefigured by the showmanship and gender identity manipulation of American acts such as The Cockettes and Alice Cooper.[134]
The origins of glam rock are associated with Marc Bolan, who had renamed his folk duo to T. Rex and taken up electric instruments by the end of the 1960s. Often cited as the moment of inception is his appearance on the UK TV programme Top of the Pops in December 1970 wearing glitter, to perform what would be his first number 1 single "Ride a White Swan".[135] From 1971, already a minor star, David Bowie developed his Ziggy Stardust persona, incorporating elements of professional make up, mime and performance into his act.[136] These performers were soon followed in the style by acts including Roxy Music, Sweet, Slade, Mott the Hoople, Mud and Alvin Stardust.[136] While highly successful in the single charts in the UK, very few of these musicians were able to make a serious impact in the United States; Bowie was the major exception becoming an international superstar and prompting the adoption of glam styles among acts like Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, New York Dolls and Jobriath, often known as "glitter rock" and with a darker lyrical content than their British counterparts.[137] In the UK the term glitter rock was most often used to refer to the extreme version of glam pursued by Gary Glitter and his support musicians the Glitter Band, who between them achieved eighteen top ten singles in the UK between 1972 and 1976.[138] A second wave of glam rock acts, including Suzi Quatro, Roy Wood's Wizzard and Sparks, dominated the British single charts from about 1974 to 1976.[136] Existing acts, some not usually considered central to the genre, also adopted glam styles, including Rod Stewart, Elton John, Queen and, for a time, even the Rolling Stones.[136] It was also a direct influence on acts that rose to prominence later, including Kiss and Adam Ant, and less directly on the formation of gothic rock and glam metal as well as on punk rock, which helped end the fashion for glam from about 1976.[137] Glam has since enjoyed sporadic modest revivals through bands such as Chainsaw Kittens, The Darkness[139] and in R n' B crossover act Prince.[140]
Soft rock, hard rock and early heavy metal
Main articles: Soft rock, Hard rock, and Heavy metal music
Led Zeppelin live at Chicago Stadium in January 1975
From the late 1960s it became common to divide mainstream rock music into soft and hard rock. Soft rock was often derived from folk rock, using acoustic instruments and putting more emphasis on melody and harmonies.[141] Major artists included Carole King, Cat Stevens and James Taylor.[141] It reached its commercial peak in the mid- to late '70s with acts like Billy Joel, America and the reformed Fleetwood Mac, whose Rumours (1977) was the best-selling album of the decade.[142] In contrast, hard rock was more often derived from blues-rock and was played louder and with more intensity.[143] It often emphasised the electric guitar, both as a rhythm instrument using simple repetitive riffs and as a solo lead instrument, and was more likely to be used with distortion and other effects.[143] Key acts included British Invasion bands like The Who and The Kinks, as well as psychedelic era performers like Cream, Jimi Hendrix and The Jeff Beck Group.[143] Hard rock-influenced bands that enjoyed international success in the later 1970s included Queen,[144] Thin Lizzy,[145] Aerosmith and AC/DC.[143]
From the late 1960s the term heavy metal began to be used to describe some hard rock played with even more volume and intensity, first as an adjective and by the early 1970s as a noun.[146] The term was first used in music in Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" (1967) and began to be associated with pioneer bands like Boston's Blue Cheer and Michigan's Grand Funk Railroad.[147] By 1970 three key British bands had developed the characteristic sounds and styles which would help shape the sub-genre. Led Zeppelin added elements of fantasy to their riff laden blues-rock, Deep Purple brought in symphonic and medieval interests from their progressive rock phrase and Black Sabbath introduced facets of the gothic and modal harmony, helping to produce a "darker" sound.[148] These elements were taken up by a "second generation" of heavy metal bands into the late 1970s, including: Judas Priest, UFO, Motörhead and Rainbow from Britain; Kiss, Ted Nugent, and Blue Öyster Cult from the US; Rush from Canada and Scorpions from Germany, all marking the expansion in popularity of the sub-genre.[148] Despite a lack of airplay and very little presence on the singles charts, late-1970s heavy metal built a considerable following, particularly among adolescent working-class males in North America and Europe.[149]
Christian rock
Main article: Christian rock
Stryper on stage in 1986
Rock has been criticized by some Christian religious leaders, who have condemned it as immoral, anti-Christian and even demonic.[150] However, Christian rock began to develop in the late 1960s, particularly out of the Jesus movement beginning in Southern California, and emerged as a sub-genre in the 1970s with artists like Larry Norman, usually seen as the first major "star" of Christian rock.[151] The genre has been particularly popular in the United States.[152] Many Christian rock performers have ties to the contemporary Christian music scene, while other bands and artists are closely linked to independent music. Since the 1980s Christian rock performers have gained mainstream success, including figures such as the American gospel-to-pop crossover artist Amy Grant and the British singer Cliff Richard.[153] While these artists were largely acceptable in Christian communities the adoption of heavy rock and glam metal styles by bands like Petra and Stryper, who achieved considerable mainstream success in the 1980s, was more controversial.[154][155] From the 1990s there were increasing numbers of acts who attempted to avoid the Christian band label, preferring to be seen as groups who were also Christians, including P.O.D and Collective Soul.[156]
Punk
Punk rock
Main article: Punk rock
See also: Protopunk and Hardcore punk
Patti Smith, performing in 1976
Punk rock was developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States and the United Kingdom. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock.[157] They created fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY (do it yourself) ethic, with many bands self-producing their recordings and distributing them through informal channels.[158]
By late 1976, acts such as the Ramones and Patti Smith, in New York City, and the Sex Pistols and The Clash, in London, were recognized as the vanguard of a new musical movement.[157] The following year saw punk rock spreading around the world. Punk quickly, though briefly, became a major cultural phenomenon in the United Kingdom. For the most part, punk took root in local scenes that tended to reject association with the mainstream. An associated punk subculture emerged, expressing youthful rebellion and characterized by distinctive clothing styles and a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies.[159]
By the beginning of the 1980s, faster, more aggressive styles such as hardcore and Oi! had become the predominant mode of punk rock.[160] This has resulted in several evolved strains of hardcore punk, such as D-beat (a distortion-heavy subgenre influenced by the UK band Discharge), anarcho-punk (such as Crass), grindcore (such as Napalm Death), and crust punk.[161] Musicians identifying with or inspired by punk also pursued a broad range of other variations, giving rise to New wave, post-punk and the alternative rock movement.[157]
New wave
Main articles: New wave music and Synthpop
See also: New Romantics and Electronic rock
Deborah Harry from the band Blondie, performing at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto in 1977
Although punk rock was a significant social and musical phenomenon, it achieved less in the way of record sales (being distributed by small specialty labels such as Stiff Records),[162] or American radio airplay (as the radio scene continued to be dominated by mainstream formats such as disco and album-oriented rock).[163] Punk rock had attracted devotees from the art and collegiate world and soon bands sporting a more literate, arty approach, such as Talking Heads, and Devo began to infiltrate the punk scene; in some quarters the description "new wave" began to be used to differentiate these less overtly punk bands.[164] Record executives, who had been mostly mystified by the punk movement, recognized the potential of the more accessible new wave acts and began aggressively signing and marketing any band that could claim a remote connection to punk or new wave.[165] Many of these bands, such as The Cars, and The Go-Go's can be seen as pop bands marketed as New Wave;[166] other existing acts, including The Police, The Pretenders and Elvis Costello, used the new wave movement as the springboard for relatively long and critically successful careers,[167] while "skinny tie" bands exemplified by The Knack,[168] or the photogenic Blondie, began as punk acts and moved into more commercial territory.[169]
Between 1979 and 1985, influenced by Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra, David Bowie, and Gary Numan, British new wave went in the direction of such New Romantics as Spandau Ballet, Ultravox, Japan, Duran Duran, A Flock of Seagulls, Culture Club, Talk Talk and the Eurythmics, sometimes using the synthesizer to replace all other instruments.[170] This period coincided with the rise of MTV and led to a great deal of exposure for this brand of synthpop, creating what has been characterised as a second British Invasion.[171] Some more traditional rock bands adapted to the video age and profited from MTV's airplay, most obviously Dire Straits', whose "Money for Nothing" gently poked fun at the station, despite the fact that it had helped make them international stars,[172] but in general guitar-oriented rock was commercially eclipsed.[173]
Post-punk
Main article: Post-punk
See also: Gothic rock and Industrial music
U2 performing at Madison Square Garden in November 2005
If hardcore most directly pursued the stripped down aesthetic of punk, and new wave came to represent its commercial wing, post-punk emerged in the later 1970s and early '80s as its more artistic and challenging side. Major influences beside punk bands were The Velvet Underground, The Who, Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, and the New York based no wave scene which placed an emphasis on performance, including bands such as James Chance and the Contortions, DNA and Sonic Youth.[174] Early contributors to the genre included the US bands Pere Ubu, Devo, The Residents and Talking Heads.[174]
The first wave of British post-punk included Gang of Four, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division, who placed less emphasis on art than their US counterparts and more on the dark emotional qualities of their music.[174] Bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, The Cure, and The Sisters of Mercy, moved increasingly in this direction to found Gothic rock, which had become the basis of a major sub-culture by the early 1980s.[175] Similar emotional territory was pursued by Australian acts like The Birthday Party and Nick Cave.[174] Members of Bauhaus and Joy Division explored new stylistic territory as Love and Rockets and New Order respectively.[174] Another early post-punk movement was the industrial music[176] developed by British bands Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, and New York-based Suicide, using a variety of electronic and sampling techniques that emulated the sound of industrial production and which would develop into a variety of forms of post-industrial music in the 1980s.[177]
The second generation of British post-punk bands that broke through in the early 1980s, including The Fall, The Pop Group, The Mekons, Echo and the Bunnymen and Teardrop Explodes, tended to move away from dark sonic landscapes.[174] Arguably the most successful band to emerge from post-punk was Ireland's U2, who incorporated elements of religious imagery together with political commentary into their often anthemic music, and by the late 1980s had become one of the biggest bands in the world.[178] Although many post-punk bands continued to record and perform, it declined as a movement in the mid-1980s as acts disbanded or moved off to explore other musical areas, but it has continued to influence the development of rock music and has been seen as a major element in the creation of the alternative rock movement.[179]
New waves and genres in heavy metal
Main article: Heavy metal music
See also: NWOBHM, Glam meta