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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Rise Against performing in Nuremberg, Germany, in 2018.
Rise Against is an American punk rock band from Chicago, formed in 1999. The group's current line-up comprises vocalist/rhythm guitarist Tim McIlrath, lead guitarist Zach Blair, bassist Joe Principe and drummer Brandon Barnes. Rooted in hardcore punk and melodic hardcore, Rise Against's music emphasizes melody, catchy hooks, an aggressive sound and playstyle, and rapid tempos. Lyrically, the band is known for their outspoken social commentary, covering a wide range of topics such as political injustice, animal rights, humanitarianism, and environmentalism.

The band spent its first four years signed to the independent record label Fat Wreck Chords, on which they released two studio albums, The Unraveling (2001) and Revolutions per Minute (2003). Both the albums were met with underground success, and in 2003 the band signed with the major label Dreamworks, which was absorbed by Geffen. Rise Against's major label debut Siren Song of the Counter Culture (2004) brought the band mainstream success, largely in part to the popularity of the singles "Give It All" and "Swing Life Away". The band's next album, The Sufferer & the Witness (2006), peaked at number ten on the Billboard 200 in the United States, and was Rise Against's first album to chart in countries outside of North America.

With the release of Appeal to Reason (2008), Rise Against's music shifted toward a more accessible and radio-friendly sound, with greater emphasis on production value. The album's third single, "Savior", broke the record for the most consecutive weeks spent on both the Hot Rock Songs and Alternative Songs charts. Rise Against's popularity grew with the release of Endgame (2011), which peaked at number two on the Billboard 200, and charted highly worldwide. The band's seventh and eighth albums, The Black Market (2014) and Wolves (2017) continued the trend of commercial success, and both peaked with the top ten on the Billboard 200. Their ninth and most recent album, Nowhere Generation, was released in 2021.

Rise Against is also known for their advocacy of progressivism, supporting organizations such as Amnesty International and the It Gets Better Project. The band actively promotes animal rights and most of the members are straight edge, PETA supporters and vegetarians. (Full article...)

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Shannon Leto performing in Kent, Ohio in October 2010.
Shannon Leto (/lɛt/; born March 9, 1970) is an American musician best known as the drummer of rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars. He co-founded the group in 1998 in Los Angeles, California, with his younger brother Jared. Their debut album, 30 Seconds to Mars (2002), was released to positive reviews but only to limited success. The band achieved worldwide fame with the release of their second album A Beautiful Lie (2005). Their following releases, This Is War (2009) and Love, Lust, Faith and Dreams (2013), received further critical and commercial success. As of September 2014, the band has sold over 15 million albums worldwide.

Leto has worked on several side projects during his career, including a collaboration with Antoine Becks, a recording with the short-lived supergroup The Wondergirls, and performing on occasional dates with Street Drum Corps. His creative contribution to music has received praise from musicians and critics. He is noted for his dynamic drumming style and his energetic live performances. (Full article...)

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Love Metal is the fourth studio album by Finnish gothic rock band HIM. Released on 11 April 2003, HIM began recording demos for the album in northern spring 2002, after an exhausting touring cycle for their previous album, which nearly broke the band up. Excited and invigorated by the new material, HIM entered Finnvox Studios in September 2002 with producer Hiili Hiilesmaa, who had previously helmed the group's 1997 debut album. Musically Love Metal featured a more raw and organic sound, inspired by the band's early influences, which was also seen as a reaction to the difficulties they faced while recording their previous album. Vocalist Ville Valo has since described Love Metal as the album where HIM found their sound. Love Metal was also the band's first album to predominantly feature their logo, the Heartagram, on the cover, while the album's title was coined in the mid-nineties as a description for HIM's musical genre.

Love Metal received positive reviews from critics, with many praising the songwriting and calling the album a return to form after Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights. The album charted in eleven countries, reaching number one in Finland and Germany, later going platinum and gold respectively. Love Metal was also the band's first album to chart in the UK and France at number 55 and 141 respectively. Three singles were released, with "The Funeral of Hearts" reaching number one on the Finnish Singles Chart. Music videos were produced for all three singles, with professional skateboarder and Jackass member Bam Margera directing two. Following the album's release, HIM toured the US for the first time, with all of the shows being sold-out. (Full article...)

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"My Back Pages" is a song written by Bob Dylan and included on his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan. It is stylistically similar to his earlier folk protest songs and features Dylan's voice with an acoustic guitar accompaniment. However, its lyrics—in particular the refrain "Ah, but I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now"—have been interpreted as a rejection of Dylan's earlier personal and political idealism, illustrating his growing disillusionment with the 1960s folk protest movement with which he was associated, and his desire to move in a new direction. Although Dylan wrote the song in 1964, he did not perform it live until 1988.

"My Back Pages" has been covered by artists as diverse as Keith Jarrett, the Byrds, the Ramones, the Nice, Steve Earle, Eric Johnson, and the Hollies. The Byrds' version, initially released on their 1967 album Younger Than Yesterday, was also issued as a single in 1967 and proved to be the band's last Top 40 hit in the U.S. (Full article...)

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Chamber pop (also called baroque pop and sometimes conflated with orchestral pop or symphonic pop) is a music genre that combines rock music with the intricate use of strings, horns, piano, and vocal harmonies, and other components drawn from the orchestral and lounge pop of the 1960s, with an emphasis on melody and texture. (Full article...)

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On September 18, 1970, American musician Jimi Hendrix died in London at the age of 27. One of the 1960s' most influential guitarists, he was described by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as "arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music."

In the days before his death, Hendrix had been in poor health, in part from fatigue caused by overwork, a chronic lack of sleep, and an assumed influenza-related illness. Insecurities about his personal relationships, as well as disillusionment with the music industry, had also contributed to his frustration. Although the details of his final hours and death are disputed, Hendrix spent much of his last day alive with Monika Dannemann. In the morning hours of September 18, Dannemann found Hendrix unresponsive in her apartment at the Samarkand Hotel, 22 Lansdowne Crescent, Notting Hill. She called for an ambulance at 11:18 a.m., and Hendrix was taken to St Mary Abbots Hospital, where an attempt was made to resuscitate him. He was pronounced dead at 12:45 p.m. (Full article...)

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