Portal:Rock music
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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 band was signed to Reprise Records in 1966 and released their first single, "Ain't It Hard", in the latter part of the year. Their first album, The Electric Prunes, included the band's two nationally charting songs, "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)" and "Get Me to the World on Time". With the appearance of their second album, Underground, the band was more free to create their own material. However, the original group disbanded by 1968 when they proved unable to record the innovative and complex arrangements by David Axelrod on the albums Mass in F Minor and Release of an Oath. Both albums were released under the band's name, the rights to which were owned by their record producer David Hassinger, but were largely performed by other musicians. Several of the original band members reconvened in 1999 and began recording again. The band still performs occasionally, although the only remaining original member is lead singer James Lowe. (Full article...)
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Starr was afflicted by life-threatening illnesses during childhood, with periods of prolonged hospitalisation. As a teenager Starr became interested in the UK skiffle craze and developed a fervent admiration for the genre. In 1957, he co-founded his first band, the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group, which earned several prestigious local bookings before the fad succumbed to American rock and roll around early 1958. When the Beatles formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool group, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. After achieving moderate success in the UK and Hamburg, he quit the Hurricanes when he was asked to join the Beatles in August 1962, replacing Pete Best.
In addition to the Beatles' films, Starr has acted in numerous others. After the band's break-up in 1970, he released several successful singles including the US top-ten hit "It Don't Come Easy", and number ones "Photograph" and "You're Sixteen". His most successful UK single was "Back Off Boogaloo", which peaked at number two. He achieved commercial and critical success with his 1973 album Ringo, which was a top-ten release in both the UK and the US. Starr has also featured in numerous documentaries, hosted television shows, narrated the first two series of the children's television programme Thomas & Friends and portrayed "Mr. Conductor" during the first season of the PBS children's television series Shining Time Station. Since 1989, he has toured with thirteen variations of Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band.
Starr's playing style, which emphasised feel over technical virtuosity, influenced many drummers to reconsider their playing from a compositional perspective. He also influenced various modern drumming techniques, such as the matched grip, tuning the drums lower, and using muffling devices on tonal rings. In his opinion, his finest recorded performance was on the Beatles' "Rain". In 1999, he was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame. In 2011, Rolling Stone readers named him the fifth-greatest drummer of all time. He was inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a Beatle in 1988 and as a solo artist in 2015, and appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to music. (Full article...)
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L.A. Woman is the sixth studio album by the American rock band the Doors, released on April 19, 1971 by Elektra Records. It is the last to feature lead singer Jim Morrison during his lifetime, due to his death exactly two months and two weeks following the album's release, though he would posthumously appear on the 1978 album An American Prayer. Even more so than its predecessors, the album is heavily influenced by blues. It was recorded without producer Paul A. Rothchild after he quit the band over the perceived lack of quality in their studio performances. Subsequently, the band co-produced the album with longtime sound engineer Bruce Botnick.
"Love Her Madly" was released as a single in March 1971, preceding the album's release, and reached the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100. Upon release, the album peaked at number nine on the Billboard 200 and reached number 28 on the UK Albums Chart. The track "Riders on the Storm" also achieved chart success.
Critics including Richie Unterberger and David Quantick have called L.A. Woman one of the Doors' best albums, citing Morrison's vocal performance and the band's stripped-down return to their blues-rock roots. (Full article...)
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"Purple Haze" is a song written by Jimi Hendrix and released as the second single by the Jimi Hendrix Experience on March 17, 1967, in the United Kingdom. The song features his inventive guitar playing, which uses the signature Hendrix chord and a mix of blues and Eastern modalities, shaped by novel sound processing techniques. Because of ambiguities in the lyrics, listeners often interpret the song as referring to a psychedelic experience, although Hendrix described it as a love song. It was included as the opening track in the North American edition of the Experience's debut album, Are You Experienced (1967).
"Purple Haze" is one of Hendrix's best-known songs and appears on many Hendrix compilation albums. The song featured regularly in concerts and each of Hendrix's group configurations issued live recordings. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and is included on lists of the greatest guitar songs, including at number two by Rolling Stone and number one by Q magazine. In 2004 and 2010, the former ranked it at number 17 on its “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time ” list, re-ranking it to number 250 in the 2021 edition. (Full article...)
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Hayley Williams, lead vocalist of the American rock band Paramore, at Rock im Park ("Rock in the Park") 2013 in Nuremberg, Germany.
Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... 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 when rock musician Warren Zevon received a terminal diagnosis of lung cancer, he learned to "enjoy every sandwich"?
- ... that heavy metal led Ossian D'Ambrosio to druidism?
- ... that Desulfovibrio vulgaris can remove toxic heavy metals from the environment?
- ... 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 during his tenure as Governor of Central Java, Muhammad Ismail banned rock music concerts and car rallies?
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Industrial metal is the fusion of heavy metal and industrial music, typically employing repeating metal guitar riffs, sampling, synthesizer or sequencer lines, and distorted vocals. Prominent industrial metal acts include Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, and Godflesh.
Industrial metal developed in the late 1980s, as industrial and metal began to fuse into a common genre. Industrial metal did well in the early 1990s, particularly in North America, with the success of groups such as Nine Inch Nails, but its popularity began to fade in the latter half of the 1990s. (Full article...)
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Meshuggah (/məˈʃʊɡə/) is a Swedish extreme metal band formed in Umeå in 1987. Since 2004, the band's lineup consists of founding members Jens Kidman (vocals) and Fredrik Thordendal (guitar), alongside guitarist Mårten Hagström, drummer Tomas Haake and bassist Dick Lövgren. Since its formation, the band has released nine studio albums, six EPs and eight music videos. Their latest studio album, Immutable, was released in April 2022 via Atomic Fire Records.
Meshuggah has become known for their innovative musical style and their complex, polymetered song structures and polyrhythms. They rose to fame as a significant act in extreme underground music, became an influence for modern metal bands, and gained a cult following. The band was labelled as one of the ten most important hard rock and heavy metal bands by Rolling Stone and as the most important band in metal by Alternative Press. In the late 2000s, the band was an inspiration for the djent subgenre. (Full article...)More did you know...
- ... that David Bowie's first gig as lead singer was at the Green Man, Blackheath?
- ... that Carlton le Willows Academy alumni include cricketer Mark Footitt, Air Supply singer/guitarist Graham Russell, and balloonist Janet Folkes?
- ... that the video for Marilyn Manson's soft-rock ballad "Running to the Edge of the World" was widely condemned for its depiction of violence against women?
- ... that Susan Beschta was a punk rocker and federal judge?
- ... that the FM Non-Duplication Rule adopted by the FCC 59 years ago led to the creation of the album-oriented and classic rock radio formats?
- ... that The Elvis Dead, a retelling of Evil Dead II in the style of Elvis Presley, features songs such as "Standing in a State of Shock", "I've Been Possessed", and "Wrapped Up in Vines"?
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