Portal:Rock music

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The Rock Music Portal

Rock is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles from the mid-1960s, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the blues and rhythm and blues genres of African-American music and from country music. Rock also drew strongly from genres such as electric blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock has centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar, drums, and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a ⁴
₄ time signature using a verse–chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political. Rock was the most popular genre of music in the U.S. and much of the Western world from the 1950s to the 2010s.

Rock musicians in the mid-1960s began to advance the album ahead of the single as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, with the Beatles at the forefront of this development. Their contributions lent the genre a cultural legitimacy in the mainstream and initiated a rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. By the late 1960s "classic rock" period, a number of distinct rock music subgenres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock, folk rock, country rock, southern rock, raga rock, and jazz rock, which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock, influenced by the countercultural psychedelic and hippie scene. New genres that emerged included progressive rock, which extended artistic elements, and glam rock, which highlighted showmanship and visual style. In the second half of the 1970s, punk rock reacted by producing stripped-down, energetic social and political critiques. Punk was an influence in the 1980s on new wave, post-punk and eventually alternative rock.

From the 1990s, alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop, and indie rock. Further fusion subgenres have since emerged, including pop-punk, electronic rock, rap rock, and rap metal. Some movements were conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including the garage rock/post-punk revival in the 2000s. Since the 2010s, rock has lost its position as the pre-eminent popular music genre in world culture, but remains commercially successful. The increased influence of hip-hop and electronic dance music can be seen in rock music, notably in the techno-pop scene of the early 2010s and the pop-punk-hip-hop revival of the 2020s. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various rock music-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Aerosmith performing at Quilmes Rock in Buenos Aires, Argentina on April 15, 2007 (from Hard rock)
Image 2Chuck Berry in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 3Wolfmother, 2007 (from Hard rock)
Image 4Buddy Holly and his band, the Crickets (from Rock and roll)
Image 5Baker, Bruce and Clapton of Cream, whose blues rock improvisation was a major factor in the development of the genre (from Hard rock)
Image 6Sign commemorating the role of Alan Freed and Cleveland, Ohio, in the origins of rock and roll (from Rock and roll)
Image 7Rush on stage in Milan, Italy, 2004 (from Hard rock)
Image 8Poison, seen here in 2008, were among the most successful acts of the 1980s glam metal era. (from Hard rock)
Image 9Foo Fighters performing an acoustic show in 2007 (from Hard rock)
Image 10Led Zeppelin live at Chicago Stadium, January 1975 (from Hard rock)
Image 11Bill Haley and his Comets performing in the 1954 Universal International film Round Up of Rhythm (from Rock and roll)
Image 12Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson's record "Roll 'Em Pete" is regarded as a precursor to rock and roll. (from Rock and roll)
Image 13Golden Earring receives a gold record in 1970. (from Hard rock)
Image 14Kiss onstage in Boston in 2004 (from Hard rock)
Image 15Elvis Presley in a promotion shot for Jailhouse Rock in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 16Nirvana were at the forefront of the 1990s grunge era. (from Hard rock)
Image 17Tommy Steele, one of the first British rock and rollers, performing in Stockholm in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 18Original member Izzy Stradlin' on stage with Guns N' Roses in 2006 (from Hard rock)
Image 19"There's No Romance in Rock and Roll" made the cover of True Life Romance in 1956. (from Rock and roll)
Image 20Little Richard in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 21Drum notation for a backbeat (from Hard rock)
Image 22The Who on stage in 1975 (from Hard rock)

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Rockism and poptimism are ideological arguments about popular music prevalent in mainstream music journalism. Rockism is the belief that rock music depends on values such as authenticity and artfulness, which elevate it over other forms of popular music. So-called "rockists" may promote the artifices stereotyped in rock music or may regard the genre as the normative state of popular music. Poptimism (or popism) is the belief that pop music is as worthy of professional critique and interest as rock music. Detractors of poptimism describe it as a counterpart of rockism that unfairly privileges the most famous or best-selling pop, hip hop and R&B acts.

The term "rockism" was coined in 1981 by English rock musician Pete Wylie. It soon became a pejorative used humorously by self-described "anti-rockist" music journalists. The term was not generally used beyond the music press until the mid 2000s, and its emergence then was partly attributable to bloggers using it more seriously in analytical debate. In the 2000s, a critical reassessment of pop music was underway, and by the next decade, poptimism supplanted rockism as the prevailing ideology in popular music criticism.

While poptimism was envisioned and encouraged as a corrective to rockist attitudes, opponents of its discourse argue that it has resulted in certain pop stars being shielded from negative reviews as part of an effort to maintain a consensus of uncritical excitement. Others argue that the two ideologies have similar flaws. (Full article...)

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Keith Richards (born 18 December 1943) is an English musician, songwriter, singer and record producer who is an original member, guitarist, secondary vocalist, and co-principal songwriter of the Rolling Stones. His songwriting partnership with the band's lead vocalist Mick Jagger is one of the most successful in history. His career spans over six decades, and his guitar playing style has been a trademark of the Rolling Stones throughout the band's career. Richards gained press notoriety for his romantic involvements and illicit drug use, and he was often portrayed as a countercultural figure. First professionally known as Keith Richard, by the early 1970s he had fully asserted his family name.

Richards was born in and grew up in Dartford, Kent. He studied at the Dartford Technical School and Sidcup Art College. After graduating, Richards befriended Jagger, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, Ian Stewart and Brian Jones and joined the Rolling Stones. As a member of the Rolling Stones, Richards also sings lead on some Stones songs. Richards typically sings lead on at least one song a concert, including "Happy", "Before They Make Me Run", and "Connection". Outside of his career with the Rolling Stones, Richards has also played with his own side-project, The X-Pensive Winos. He also appeared in two Pirates of the Caribbean films as Captain Teague, father of Jack Sparrow, whose look and characterisation was inspired by Richards himself.

In 1989, Richards was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and in 2004 into the UK Music Hall of Fame with the Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him fourth on its list of 100 best guitarists in 2011. In 2023, Rolling Stone's ranking was 15th. The magazine lists fourteen songs that Richards wrote with Jagger on its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list. (Full article...)

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Too Much Too Soon is the second album by the American hard rock band New York Dolls. It was released by Mercury Records on May 10, 1974, and recorded earlier that year at A&R Studios in New York City. Dissatisfied with the recording of their 1973 self-titled debut album, the Dolls' lead singer David Johansen enlisted veteran producer Shadow Morton to produce the sessions. Morton, who had been disenchanted by the music industry, found renewed motivation in the band's energy and undertook the project as a challenge.

Although the Dolls shared an affinity for Morton, they produced little original material with him. To complete Too Much Too Soon, they covered older songs and re-recorded their past demos. Johansen impersonated different characters while singing some of the novelty covers, and Morton incorporated many studio sound effects and female backing vocals in his production. For the album, lead guitarist Johnny Thunders wrote and recorded "Chatterbox", his first recorded performance singing lead.

Too Much Too Soon sold poorly and only charted at number 167 on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape. After a problem-ridden national tour, the New York Dolls were dropped by Mercury and disbanded a few years later. The album received positive reviews from most critics, some of whom felt Morton's production highlighted the group's raw sound and made it a better record than their first. Like their debut album, Too Much Too Soon became one of the most popular cult records in rock music and has since been viewed by music journalists as a precursor to punk rock. (Full article...)

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"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and featured on his Bringing It All Back Home album, released on March 22, 1965, by Columbia Records. The song was recorded on January 15, 1965, with Dylan's acoustic guitar and harmonica and William E. Lee's bass guitar the only instrumentation. The lyrics were heavily influenced by Symbolist poetry and bid farewell to the titular "Baby Blue". There has been much speculation about the real life identity of "Baby Blue", with possibilities including Joan Baez, David Blue, Paul Clayton, Dylan's folk music audience, and even Dylan himself.

"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" has been covered by Them, Baez and the Byrds. Them's version, released in 1966, influenced garage bands during the mid-'60s, and Beck later sampled it for his 1996 single "Jack-Ass". The Byrds recorded the song twice in 1965 as a possible follow-up single to "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "All I Really Want to Do", but neither recording was released in that form. The Byrds did release a 1969 recording of the song on their Ballad of Easy Rider album. (Full article...)

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Credit: Achim Raschka

Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro performing at Rock am Ring 2013.

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... that the neofolk album The Lone Furrow features several guest vocalists from heavy metal bands, and critics thought it might appeal to fans of that genre?
... that the Liverpool Echo described British rock and roll star Tommy Steele as "quite unable to sing and play the guitar at the same time" when reviewing his first album?
... that the heavy metal band Cradle of Filth released a T-shirt that was so offensive that several people were arrested for wearing it?
... that Shin Hae-chul, who previously made hard rock and heavy metal albums, was inspired by big band music when he made The Songs for the One?
... that heavy metal led Ossian D'Ambrosio to druidism?
... that the British rock musician Hannah Grae went viral online with an anti-sexual harassment parody of Aqua's "Barbie Girl"?

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Post-Britpop is an alternative rock subgenre and is the period in the late 1990s and early 2000s, following Britpop, when the media were identifying a "new generation" or "second wave" of guitar bands influenced by acts like Oasis and Blur, but with less overt British concerns in their lyrics and making more use of American rock and indie influences, as well as experimental music. Bands in the post-Britpop era that had been established acts, but gained greater prominence after the decline of Britpop, such as Radiohead and the Verve, and new acts such as Travis, Keane, Snow Patrol, Stereophonics, Feeder, and particularly Coldplay, achieved much wider international success than most of the Britpop groups that had preceded them, and were some of the most commercially successful acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s. (Full article...)