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 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 1Foo Fighters performing an acoustic show in 2007 (from Hard rock)
Image 2The Who on stage in 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 4Poison, seen here in 2008, were among the most successful acts of the 1980s glam metal era. (from Hard rock)
Image 5Original member Izzy Stradlin' on stage with Guns N' Roses in 2006 (from Hard rock)
Image 6Led Zeppelin live at Chicago Stadium, January 1975 (from Hard rock)
Image 7Wolfmother, 2007 (from Hard rock)
Image 8Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson's record "Roll 'Em Pete" is regarded as a precursor to rock and roll. (from Rock and roll)
Image 9Elvis Presley in a promotion shot for Jailhouse Rock in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 10Drum notation for a backbeat (from Hard rock)
Image 11Little Richard in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 12"There's No Romance in Rock and Roll" made the cover of True Life Romance in 1956. (from Rock and roll)
Image 13Nirvana were at the forefront of the 1990s grunge era. (from Hard rock)
Image 14Chuck Berry in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 15Rush on stage in Milan, Italy, 2004 (from Hard rock)
Image 16Kiss onstage in Boston in 2004 (from Hard rock)
Image 17Bill Haley and his Comets performing in the 1954 Universal International film Round Up of Rhythm (from Rock and roll)
Image 18Tommy Steele, one of the first British rock and rollers, performing in Stockholm in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 19Buddy Holly and his band, the Crickets (from Rock and roll)
Image 20Golden Earring receives a gold record in 1970. (from Hard rock)
Image 21Aerosmith performing at Quilmes Rock in Buenos Aires, Argentina on April 15, 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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Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies is a music reference book by American music journalist and essayist Robert Christgau. It was first published in October 1981 by Ticknor & Fields. The book compiles approximately 3,000 of Christgau's capsule album reviews, most of which were originally written for his "Consumer Guide" column in The Village Voice throughout the 1970s. The entries feature annotated details about each record's release and cover a variety of genres related to rock music.

Christgau's reviews are informed by an interest in the aesthetic and political dimensions of popular music, a belief that it could be consumed intelligently, and a desire to communicate his ideas to readers in an entertaining, provocative, and compact way. Many of the older reviews were rewritten for the guide to reflect his changed perspective and matured stylistic approach. He undertook an intense preparation process for the book during 1979 and 1980, which temporarily hindered both his awareness of current music and his marriage to fellow writer Carola Dibbell, whom he later credited as an influence on his work.

The guide was critically well received, earning praise for its extensive discography, Christgau's judgment, and his colorful writing. Reviewers also noted his opinionated tastes, analytical commentary, pithy language, and critical quips. A staple of rock-era reference works, Christgau's Record Guide became widely popular in libraries as a source for popular music studies and as an authoritative guide for fellow critics, record collectors, and music shops, influencing the development of critical standards for evaluating music. It later appeared on several expert lists of the best popular music literature.

Christgau's Record Guide has been reprinted several times in book form and later on Christgau's website in its entirety. Two more "Consumer Guide" collections have been published, compiling his capsule reviews from the 1980s and the 1990s, respectively. (Full article...)

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Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; 5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991) was a British singer and songwriter who achieved worldwide fame as the lead vocalist and pianist of the rock band Queen. Regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of rock music, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range. Mercury defied the conventions of a rock frontman with his theatrical style, influencing the artistic direction of Queen.

Born in 1946 in Zanzibar to Parsi-Indian parents, Mercury attended English boarding schools in India from the age of eight and returned to Zanzibar after secondary school. In 1964, his family fled the Zanzibar Revolution, moving to Middlesex, England. Having studied and written music for years, he formed Queen in 1970 with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor. Mercury wrote numerous hits for Queen, including "Killer Queen", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Somebody to Love", "We Are the Champions", "Don't Stop Me Now" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". His charismatic stage performances often saw him interact with the audience, as displayed at the 1985 Live Aid concert. He also led a solo career and was a producer and guest musician for other artists.

Mercury was diagnosed with AIDS in 1987. He continued to record with Queen, and was posthumously featured on their final album, Made in Heaven (1995). In 1991, the day after announcing his diagnosis, he died from complications of the disease at the age of 45. In 1992, a concert in tribute to him was held at Wembley Stadium, in benefit of AIDS awareness. His career with Queen was dramatised in the 2018 biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.

As a member of Queen, Mercury was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003, and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2004. In 1990, he and the other Queen members received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. One year after his death, Mercury received the same award individually. In 2005, Queen were awarded an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors. In 2002, Mercury was voted number 58 in the BBC's poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. (Full article...)

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Pod is the debut studio album by American alternative rock band the Breeders, released by 4AD records on May 29, 1990. Engineered by Steve Albini, the album features band leader Kim Deal on vocals and guitar, Josephine Wiggs on bass, Britt Walford on drums, and Tanya Donelly on guitar. Albini's production prioritized sound over technical accomplishment; the final takes favor the band's spontaneous live "in studio" performances.

The Breeders formed in 1988 when Deal, bass player for Pixies, befriended Donelly of Throwing Muses during a European tour. They recorded a country-infused demo in 1989, leading to 4AD co-founder Ivo Watts-Russell funding an album, Pod, recorded that year at the Palladium studio in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Due in part to Deal's work with the Pixies, the album was widely anticipated, particularly in Europe. It became a critical and popular success, reaching number 22 in the UK. Critics praised its dark, sexualized lyrics, and compared it favorably to the Pixies. Nirvana's Kurt Cobain said it was one of his favorite records, and Pitchfork ranked it number 81 on its list of the best albums of the 1990s. The cover art was designed by Vaughan Oliver and portrays a man performing a fertility dance while wearing a belt of eels. (Full article...)

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"Chimes of Freedom" is a song written and performed by Bob Dylan and featured on his Tom Wilson produced 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan. The song depicts the thoughts and feelings of the singer and his companion as they shelter from a lightning storm under a doorway after sunset. The singer expresses his solidarity with the downtrodden and oppressed, believing that the thunder is tolling in sympathy for them.

Initially, critics described the song as showing the influence of the symbolist poetry of Arthur Rimbaud, but more recent biographers of Dylan have linked the origins of the song to verses the songwriter had written as a response to the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. Some commentators and Dylan biographers have assessed the song as one of Dylan's most significant compositions, and critic Paul Williams has described it as Dylan's Sermon on the Mount.

The song has been covered many times by different artists, including the Byrds, Jefferson Starship, Youssou N'Dour, Bruce Springsteen, and U2. (Full article...)

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Credit: Ollie Atkins

Elvis Presley meeting with US President Richard Nixon. On December 21, 1970.

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... that during his tenure as Governor of Central Java, Muhammad Ismail banned rock music concerts and car rallies?
... 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 raw material waste from the West influenced a generation of rock music in China?
... that when rock musician Warren Zevon received a terminal diagnosis of lung cancer, he learned to "enjoy every sandwich"?
... 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 the British rock musician Hannah Grae went viral online with an anti-sexual harassment parody of Aqua's "Barbie Girl"?

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Psychedelic rock is a rock music genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound effects and recording techniques, extended instrumental solos, and improvisation. Many psychedelic groups differ in style, and the label is often applied spuriously.

Originating in the mid-1960s among British and American musicians, the sound of psychedelic rock invokes three core effects of LSD: depersonalization, dechronicization (the bending of time), and dynamization (when fixed, ordinary objects dissolve into moving, dancing structures), all of which detach the user from everyday reality. Musically, the effects may be represented via novelty studio tricks, electronic or non-Western instrumentation, disjunctive song structures, and extended instrumental segments. Some of the earlier 1960s psychedelic rock musicians were based in folk, jazz, and the blues, while others showcased an explicit Indian classical influence called "raga rock". In the 1960s, there existed two main variants of the genre: the more whimsical, surrealist British psychedelia and the harder American West Coast "acid rock". While "acid rock" is sometimes deployed interchangeably with the term "psychedelic rock", it also refers more specifically to the heavier, harder, and more extreme ends of the genre. (Full article...)