Portal:Rock music
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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Their first two studio releases, The Allman Brothers Band (1969) and Idlewild South (1970) (both released by Capricorn Records), stalled commercially but their 1971 live release At Fillmore East was an artistic and commercial breakthrough. It features extended versions of their songs "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed" and "Whipping Post", showcasing the group's jamming style.
Group leader Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident later that year – on October 29, 1971 – and the band dedicated Eat a Peach (1972) to his memory, a dual studio/live album that cemented the band's popularity and featured Gregg Allman's "Melissa" and Dickey Betts's "Blue Sky". Following the motorcycling death of bassist Berry Oakley one year and 13 days later on November 11, 1972, the group recruited keyboardist Chuck Leavell and bassist Lamar Williams for 1973's Brothers and Sisters. The album included Betts's hit single "Ramblin' Man" and instrumental "Jessica", which went on to become classic rock radio staples and placed the group at the forefront of 1970s rock music. Internal turmoil overtook them soon after as the group dissolved in 1976, reformed briefly at the end of the decade with additional personnel changes and broke up again in 1982.
The band re-formed once more in 1989, releasing a string of new albums and touring heavily. A series of personnel changes in the late 1990s was capped by the departure of Betts. The group found stability during the 2000s with bassist Oteil Burbridge and guitarists Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks (the nephew of their original drummer) and became renowned for their month-long string of shows at New York City's Beacon Theatre each spring. The band retired for good in October 2014 after their final show at the Beacon Theatre. (Full article...)
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Ice released his debut album, Hooked, on the independent Ichiban Records before signing a contract with SBK Records, a record label of the EMI Group, which released a reformatted version under the title To the Extreme; it became the fastest-selling hip hop album of all time and "Ice Ice Baby" was the first hip hop single to top the Billboard charts. Followed by the live album Extremely Live (1991), Ice made a cameo appearance on the film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991) where he performed "Ninja Rap", which he co-wrote. He was soon offered and starred in his own film, Cool as Ice (1991), which included the single "Cool as Ice (Everybody Get Loose)" with Naomi Campbell; the film itself was a box office failure.
His fast rise in popularity was quickly marred by media controversies about his background, and criticism about his appeal of hip hop to a mainstream audience alongside MC Hammer. Ice later regretted his business arrangements with SBK, who had also published fabricated biographical information without his knowledge. Ice's second studio album, Mind Blowin' (1994), featured a major image change but was commercially unsuccessful. Following rap rock performances in the underground scene and playing in a local grunge band, Ice released the dark nu metal album Hard to Swallow (1998), followed by the independently-released Bi-Polar (2001) and Platinum Underground (2005).
In the 2000s, Ice began appearing on television reality shows including The Surreal Life. In 2010, Ice began hosting The Vanilla Ice Project on DIY Network which ran for nine seasons until 2019. In 2022 he started another home improvement television program, The Vanilla Ice Home Show. He is also involved in motocross racing and real estate. (Full article...)
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Almendra (pronounced [alˈmendɾa]; Spanish for "almond") is the self-titled debut studio album by Argentine rock band Almendra which was released in 1969 on Vik, a subsidiary of RCA Victor. To distinguish it from the band's next release, Almendra II, it is also known as Almendra I. The album represented the first full-length musical endeavour of nineteen-year-old Luis Alberto Spinetta, having formed the band in the mid 1960s along with Emilio del Guercio, Edelmiro Molinari and Rodolfo García. The famous artwork, showing a crying man with a toy arrow stuck on his head, was designed by Spinetta to embody the different lyrical themes of the album.
By the late 1960s, the nueva ola phenomenon was losing popularity and Los Gatos' debut single, "La balsa", had catapulted the emergence of Argentine rock. The success of Los Gatos paved the way for Manal and Almendra; the three groups are considered the foundational trilogy of Argentine rock, singing serious and artistic songs in Spanish at a time when this was discouraged. Spinetta's lyricism has been celebrated for its poetry, surrealism and idiosyncratic use of grammar and accent. Almendra incorporated musical influences from the Beatles, jazz, and Argentine music such as tango and folk music.
Upon release, the album achieved critical and commercial success, aided by the popularity of the single "Muchacha (ojos de papel)", which remains one of Spinetta's most celebrated compositions. Almendra is often listed as one of the greatest and most influential albums in the history of Argentine rock music, serving as a foundation of what is locally known as rock nacional and, by extension, rock en español in general. The album remains a paradigm of Argentine 1960s youth culture, signaling the growing influence of the counterculture of that decade in the country. (Full article...)
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"Visions of Johanna" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan on his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde. Several critics have acclaimed "Visions of Johanna" as one of Dylan's highest achievements in writing, praising the allusiveness and subtlety of the language. Rolling Stone included "Visions of Johanna" on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 1999, Sir Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, listed it as the greatest song lyric ever written.
Dylan first recorded the song in New York City in November 1965, under the working title of "Freeze Out", but was dissatisfied with the results. When the Blonde on Blonde recording sessions moved to Nashville in February 1966, Dylan attempted the composition again with different musicians, and decided to release this performance. All of the alternate versions of the song have been officially released, but some only on a limited edition collectors set: many of them are November 1965 or later 1966 studio outtakes, and two others are live performances from his 1966 world tour.
Numerous artists have recorded cover versions of the song, including the Grateful Dead, Cat Power, Marianne Faithfull, Chris Smither, and Robyn Hitchcock. (Full article...)
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Elvis Presley meeting with US President Richard Nixon. On December 21, 1970.
Did you know (auto-generated)
- ... 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 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 raw material waste from the West influenced a generation of rock music in China?
- ... that the British rock musician Hannah Grae went viral online with an anti-sexual harassment parody of Aqua's "Barbie Girl"?
- ... that the heavy metal musician Leah has sometimes been called "the metal Enya"?
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Viking metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by a lyrical and thematic focus on Norse mythology, Norse paganism, and the Viking Age. Viking metal is quite diverse as a musical style, to the point where some consider it more a cross-genre term than a genre, but it is typically seen as black metal with influences from Nordic folk music. Common traits include a slow-paced and heavy riffing style, anthemic choruses, use of both sung and harsh vocals, a reliance on folk instrumentation, and often the use of keyboards for atmospheric effect. (Full article...)
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Ride the Lightning is the second studio album by the American heavy metal band Metallica, released on July 27, 1984, by the independent record label Megaforce Records. The album was recorded in three weeks with producer Flemming Rasmussen at Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen, Denmark. The artwork, based on a concept by the band, depicts an electric chair being struck by lightning flowing from the band logo. The title was taken from a passage in Stephen King's novel The Stand, in which a character uses the phrase to refer to execution by electric chair.
Although rooted in the thrash metal genre, the album showcased the band's musical growth and lyrical sophistication. Bassist Cliff Burton introduced the basics of music theory to the band and had more input in the songwriting. Beyond the fast tempos of its debut Kill 'Em All, Metallica broadened its approach by employing acoustic guitars, extended instrumentals, and more complex harmonies. The overall recording costs were paid by Metallica's European label Music for Nations because Megaforce was unable to cover it. It is the last album to feature songwriting contributions from former lead guitarist Dave Mustaine, and the first to feature contributions from successor Kirk Hammett. (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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