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

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The Pixies are an American alternative rock band formed in 1986, in Boston, Massachusetts. Until 2013, the band consisted of Black Francis (vocals, rhythm guitar, songwriter), Joey Santiago (lead guitar), Kim Deal (bass, vocals) and David Lovering (drums). They disbanded acrimoniously in 1993 but reunited in 2004. After Deal left in 2013, the Pixies hired Kim Shattuck as a touring bassist. She was replaced that year by Paz Lenchantin, who became a full member in 2016, and recorded three studio albums with the band before departing in 2024.

The Pixies are associated with the 1990s alternative rock boom, and draw on elements including punk rock and surf rock. Their music is known for dynamic "loud-quiet-loud" shifts and song structures. Francis is the Pixies' primary songwriter; his often surreal lyrics cover offbeat subjects such as extraterrestrials, incest, and biblical violence. The band achieved modest popularity in the US but was more successful in Europe. Their jarring pop sound influenced acts such as Nirvana, Radiohead, the Smashing Pumpkins and Weezer. The Pixies' popularity grew in the years after their breakup, leading to a 2004 reunion, sold-out world tours and four further albums: Indie Cindy (2014), Head Carrier (2016), Beneath the Eyrie (2019) and Doggerel (2022). (Full article...)

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Paul Vaughn Butterfield (December 17, 1942 – May 4, 1987) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and bandleader. After early training as a classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored the blues scene in his native Chicago, where he met Muddy Waters and other blues greats, who provided encouragement and opportunities for him to join in jam sessions. He soon began performing with fellow blues enthusiasts Nick Gravenites and Elvin Bishop.

In 1963, he formed the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which recorded several successful albums and was popular on the late-1960s concert and festival circuit, with performances at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, the Fillmore East in New York City, the Monterey Pop Festival, and Woodstock. The band was known for combining electric Chicago blues with a rock urgency and for their pioneering jazz fusion performances and recordings. The band was also among the first racially integrated blues groups. After the breakup of the group in 1971, Butterfield continued to tour and record with the band Paul Butterfield's Better Days, with his mentor Muddy Waters, and with members of the roots-rock group the Band. While still recording and performing, Butterfield died in 1987 at age 44 of an accidental drug overdose.

Music critics have acknowledged his development of an original approach that places him among the best-known blues harp players. In 2006, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. Butterfield and the early members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. Both panels noted his harmonica skills and his contributions to bringing blues music to a younger and broader audience. (Full article...)

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Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell is the sixth studio album by American rock singer Meat Loaf and the second one in the Bat Out of Hell trilogy, which was written and produced by Jim Steinman. It was released on September 14, 1993, sixteen years after Meat Loaf's first solo album Bat Out of Hell. The album reached number 1 in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. Five tracks were released as singles, including "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)", which reached number 1 in 28 countries.

The album was released by Virgin Records outside of North America, where it was released by MCA. The third part of the Bat trilogy, Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, was released in 2006.

Like the first album of the trilogy, Bat Out of Hell II was a commercial success. It sold over 14 million copies worldwide. (Full article...)

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"Beck's Bolero" is a rock instrumental recorded by English guitarist Jeff Beck in 1966. It is Beck's first solo recording and has been described as "one of the great rock instrumentals, epic in scope, harmonically and rhythmically ambitious yet infused with primal energy". "Beck's Bolero" features a prominent melody with multiple guitar parts propelled by a rhythm inspired by Ravel's Boléro.

The recording session brought together a group of musicians, including Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, John Paul Jones, and Nicky Hopkins, who later agreed that the line up was a first attempt at what became Led Zeppelin. However, there is an ongoing disagreement over the composer as well as producer credits. Despite being credited solely to Page, Beck claims that he made significant contributions to the composition. Likewise, Page and Simon Napier-Bell each claim to have produced it, while Mickie Most received the credit.

"Beck's Bolero" was not released until ten months after recording and then only as the B-side to Beck's first single. When it finally received greater exposure on Beck's debut album Truth in the latter part of 1968, it was still considered quite advanced even though it was over two years old. Beck continued to perform it throughout his career and several renditions have been recorded by other musicians. (Full article...)

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Credit: AngMoKio

Rock 'n' Roll singer Johnny Trouble of Johnny Trouble Trio.

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... 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?

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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...)