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

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Rockism and poptimism are ideological arguments about popular music prevalent in mainstream music journalism. Rockism is the belief that rock music depends on values such as authenticity and artfulness, which elevate it over other forms of popular music. So-called "rockists" may promote the artifices stereotyped in rock music or may regard the genre as the normative state of popular music. Poptimism (or popism) is the belief that pop music is as worthy of professional critique and interest as rock music. Detractors of poptimism describe it as a counterpart of rockism that unfairly privileges the most famous or best-selling pop, hip hop and R&B acts.

The term "rockism" was coined in 1981 by English rock musician Pete Wylie. It soon became a pejorative used humorously by self-described "anti-rockist" music journalists. The term was not generally used beyond the music press until the mid 2000s, and its emergence then was partly attributable to bloggers using it more seriously in analytical debate. In the 2000s, a critical reassessment of pop music was underway, and by the next decade, poptimism supplanted rockism as the prevailing ideology in popular music criticism.

While poptimism was envisioned and encouraged as a corrective to rockist attitudes, opponents of its discourse argue that it has resulted in certain pop stars being shielded from negative reviews as part of an effort to maintain a consensus of uncritical excitement. Others argue that the two ideologies have similar flaws. (Full article...)

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Maynard James Keenan (born James Herbert Keenan; April 17, 1964) is an American singer, songwriter, philanthropist, record producer, and winemaker. He is best known as the singer and primary lyricist of the rock bands Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer.

Having grown up in Ohio and Michigan, Keenan joined the U.S. Army after graduating from high school. After his service, he attended the Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He relocated to Los Angeles in 1988 to pursue a career in interior design and set construction, and formed Tool with Adam Jones shortly thereafter.

In addition to his music career, Keenan owns Merkin Vineyards and Caduceus Cellars in Arizona, where he resides. Since rising to fame, he has been noted as a recluse, although he does emerge to support charitable causes and for the occasional interview. He has also ventured into acting. (Full article...)

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American Tragedy is the second studio album by American rap rock band Hollywood Undead. Production for the album began following the induction of Daniel Murillo into the band in early 2010 and lasted until December. Don Gilmore and Ben Grosse, who helped produce the band's debut album, Swan Songs (2008), also returned to produce the album along with several other producers including Kevin Rudolf, Sam Hollander, Dave Katz, Griffin Boice, Jeff Halavacs, and Jacob Kasher. The album is musically heavier and features darker lyrical content than the band's previous effort. Originally set to release in March, American Tragedy was released on April 5, 2011 in the United States and was released on various other dates that month in other countries. A remix of the album, American Tragedy Redux, was released on November 21, 2011.

The album debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200, selling approximately 67,000 copies in its first week in the United States, and ended up becoming the 142nd best selling album of 2011 in the US. It also charted in a few other countries, including Canada and the UK, a first for the band. The album also had five singles: "Hear Me Now", "Been to Hell", "Coming Back Down", "Comin' in Hot", and "My Town", with music videos being made for all of them except "Coming Back Down" as it was released on the same day as "Been to Hell". The band participated in three headlining tours: the Revolt Tour, the Endless Summer Tour, and the World War III Tour, as well as other supporting tours throughout 2011 to promote the album. Upon release, American Tragedy received mixed reviews. Critics consistently noted the darker and more serious tone of the album, but to mixed reception. Lyrics were widely criticized while the energy and instruments were praised in most reviews. (Full article...)

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"Laugh, Laugh" is a song by American rock group the Beau Brummels, written by guitarist Ron Elliott and produced by Sylvester Stewart, later known as Sly Stone. Released in December 1964 as the band's debut single, the song reached number 15 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart the following February. "Laugh, Laugh" was the first hit single to come out of the emerging San Francisco music scene in response to the British Invasion. The song was later included on the band's first full-length album, Introducing the Beau Brummels, released in April 1965.

The Beau Brummels promoted the single by appearing on several television shows, including a 1965 episode of The Flintstones in which the band gave an animated performance as the Beau Brummelstones. In 1994, "Laugh, Laugh" was selected to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll exhibit. Lead singer Sal Valentino reworked the song for his 2008 solo album, Every Now and Then. (Full article...)

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Credit: Carlos Delgado CC-BY-SA

Amparo Llanos of Spanish band Dover in 2014 during their Dover came to me tour.

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... that heavy metal led Ossian D'Ambrosio to druidism?
... 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 when rock musician Warren Zevon received a terminal diagnosis of lung cancer, he learned to "enjoy every sandwich"?
... that the Diaspora Yeshiva Band infused rock and bluegrass with Jewish lyrics, creating a music style it called "Hasidic rock" or "Country and Eastern"?
... 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 Desulfovibrio vulgaris can remove toxic heavy metals from the environment?

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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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