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

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Fall Out Boy is an American rock band formed in Wilmette, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, in 2001. The band consists of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Patrick Stump, bassist Pete Wentz, lead guitarist Joe Trohman, and drummer Andy Hurley. The band originated from Chicago's hardcore punk scene and was formed by Wentz and Trohman as a pop-punk side project; Stump joined shortly thereafter. The group went through a succession of drummers before Hurley joined. Their debut album, Take This to Your Grave (2003), became an underground success and helped the band gain a dedicated fanbase through heavy touring. Take This to Your Grave is cited as influential on pop-punk music in the 2000s.

With Wentz as the band's lyricist and Stump as the primary composer, Fall Out Boy's 2005 major-label breakthrough, From Under the Cork Tree, produced two hit singles, "Sugar, We're Goin Down" and "Dance, Dance". It went double platinum, transforming the group into superstars and making Wentz a celebrity and tabloid fixture. Fall Out Boy received a Best New Artist nomination at the 2006 Grammy Awards. Infinity on High (2007) debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 260,000 first week sales. It produced two worldwide hit singles, "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race" and "Thnks fr th Mmrs". Their following album, Folie à Deux (2008), was a commercial disappointment and received a mixed response. Following the release of Believers Never Die – Greatest Hits in 2009, the band went on hiatus and the members worked on side projects.

The band reunited with Save Rock and Roll (2013), which became Fall Out Boy's second number-one album, and included the top 20 single "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)". The same year, the band released the EP PAX AM Days, consisting of eight punk-influenced tracks that were recorded during a two-day session with producer Ryan Adams. The band's sixth studio album, American Beauty/American Psycho (2015) peaked at number one on the Billboard 200, and spawned the top-10 hit "Centuries" and the single "Uma Thurman" which reached No. 22 on the Billboard Hot 100. This was followed by their first remix album Make America Psycho Again, which featured remixes of all original tracks from American Beauty/American Psycho by a different artist on each song, including Migos and Wiz Khalifa.

The band's seventh studio album Mania (2018), also peaked at No. 1, making it the band's fourth No. 1 album and sixth consecutive Top 10 album. The Mania tour included a show at Wrigley Field, marking their first headlining stadium show. In 2018, Fall Out Boy also received their second Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album for Mania. On January 18, 2023, the group announced its eighth studio album, So Much (for) Stardust, which was released on March 24. (Full article...)

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David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie (/ˈboʊi/ BOH-ee), was an English singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. He is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, and his music and stagecraft had a significant impact on popular music.

Bowie developed an interest in music from an early age. He studied art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. He released a string of unsuccessful singles with local bands and a solo album before achieving his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart with "Space Oddity" (1969). After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with the flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by the success of "Starman" and album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which won him widespread popularity. In 1975, Bowie's style shifted towards a sound he characterised as "plastic soul", initially alienating many of his UK fans but garnering his first major US crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the album Young Americans. In 1976, Bowie starred in the cult film The Man Who Fell to Earth and released Station to Station. In 1977, he again changed direction with the electronic-inflected album Low, the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that came to be known as the Berlin Trilogy. "Heroes" (1977) and Lodger (1979) followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise.

After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had three number-one hits: the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes", its album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) and "Under Pressure" (a 1981 collaboration with Queen). He achieved his greatest commercial success in the 1980s with Let's Dance (1983). Between 1988 and 1992, he fronted the hard rock band Tin Machine before resuming his solo career in 1993. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including industrial and jungle. He also continued acting; his roles included Major Jack Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth (1986), Phillip Jeffries in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), Andy Warhol in the biopic Basquiat (1996), and Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006), among other film and television appearances and cameos. He stopped touring after 2004 and his last live performance was at a charity event in 2006. He returned from a decade-long recording hiatus in 2013 with The Next Day and remained musically active until his death from liver cancer in 2016. He died two days after both his 69th birthday and the release of his final album, Blackstar.

During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at over 100 million records worldwide, made him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. Often dubbed the "chameleon of rock" due to his constant musical reinventions, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Rolling Stone ranked him among the greatest artists in history. As of 2022, Bowie was the best-selling vinyl artist of the 21st century. (Full article...)

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Song of Innocence is the debut album by American composer and producer David Axelrod. It was released in October 1968 by Capitol Records. In an effort to capitalize on the experimental climate of popular music at the time, Axelrod composed the album as a suite-like tone poem interpreting Songs of Innocence, a 1789 illustrated collection of poems by William Blake. Recording took place at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles with an orchestra and studio musicians from the Wrecking Crew collective, including keyboardist and conductor Don Randi, guitarist Al Casey, bassist Carol Kaye, and drummer Earl Palmer.

An instrumental jazz fusion record, Song of Innocence incorporates elements of classical, rock, funk, pop, and theatre music. Axelrod arranged the music for bass, drums, and string instruments, composing in a rock idiom with tempos centered on such rhythms played by Palmer. He used contrast in his orchestral compositions, interspersing their euphoric psychedelic R&B structures with dramatic, harrowing arrangements to reflect the supernatural themes found in Blake's poems. The resulting music's reverent, psychedelic overtones have been interpreted as evoking the poet's themes of innocence and spirituality.

While innovative for its application of rock and jazz techniques, Song of Innocence was not commercially successful and confounded contemporary critics, who viewed it as an ambitious but foolish curiosity piece. In the 1990s, critics reassessed the album as a classic, while leading disc jockeys in hip hop and electronica rediscovered and sampled its songs. "Holy Thursday", the record's best-known track, was frequently sampled by hip hop producers. The renewed interest in Axelrod's work prompted Stateside Records to reissue Song of Innocence in 2000. (Full article...)

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"I'm Goin' Down" is a rock song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen. It was released on August 27, 1985 by Columbia Records as the sixth single from his 1984 album Born in the U.S.A. The song was recorded with the E Street Band in May 1982 at Power Station studio in New York City, and co-produced by Springsteen, Jon Landau, Chuck Plotkin, and Steve Van Zandt. Although Springsteen had changing ideas about the songs to put on the album, "I'm Goin' Down" was ultimately selected for inclusion.

The recording is based on an energetic band performance that gives prominence to a heavy drum sound. The lyrics focus on sexual frustration in a deteriorating relationship. The single reached No. 9 in the United States and the top 30 in Sweden, Italy, and Canada. On the album's release, it was praised by critics for the band's musicianship and Springsteen's vocals and lyrics. Later it received favorable rankings in retrospectives of Springsteen's career, among which was an NME list calling it his fourth best song.

Springsteen has not often performed the song since the Born in the U.S.A. Tour. Between 2002 and 2023, it appeared on about 6.5 percent of the set lists published on his official website. "I'm Goin' Down" has been covered by Frank Black and the Catholics, Trampled by Turtles, Free Energy, Vampire Weekend, and other artists. (Full article...)

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Credit: Beni Köhler

Patti Smith performing at Provinssirock festival in Seinäjoki, Finland, June 2007.

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... that Greg Cooper based the character of suffragist Kate Sheppard in punk-rock musical That Bloody Woman on Bette Midler in concert in Cleveland?
... that before charting on the UK Albums Chart with Are We There Yet?, the indie rock musician James Marriott had made a career of mocking other YouTubers' music?
... that Dutch radio and TV presenter Hanneke Kappen presented the second Dutch radio show dedicated to heavy metal music?
... 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 band Judas Priest took their name from Bob Dylan's song "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest"?
... that Skálmöld & Sinfóníuhljómsveit Íslands documents a symphony orchestra playing heavy metal music?

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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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