Portal:Rock_music
Portal:Rock music
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...)
Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson's record "Roll 'Em Pete" is regarded as a precursor to rock and roll. (from Rock and roll)
Sign commemorating the role of Alan Freed and Cleveland, Ohio, in the origins of rock and roll (from Rock and roll)
Tommy Steele, one of the first British rock and rollers, performing in Stockholm in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Bill Haley and his Comets performing in the 1954 Universal International film Round Up of Rhythm (from Rock and roll)
Golden Earring receives a gold record in 1970. (from Hard rock)
Wolfmother, 2007 (from Hard rock)
"There's No Romance in Rock and Roll" made the cover of True Life Romance in 1956. (from Rock and roll)
Original member Izzy Stradlin' on stage with Guns N' Roses in 2006 (from Hard rock)
Little Richard in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Foo Fighters performing an acoustic show in 2007 (from Hard rock)
Chuck Berry in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Aerosmith performing at Quilmes Rock in Buenos Aires, Argentina on April 15, 2007 (from Hard rock)
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Rooted in blues and early rock and roll, the Rolling Stones started out playing covers and were at the forefront of the British Invasion in 1964, becoming identified with the youthful counterculture of the 1960s. They then found greater success with their own material, as "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", "Get Off of My Cloud" (both 1965), and "Paint It Black" (1966) became international number-one hits. Aftermath (1966), their first entirely original album, is often considered to be the most important of their early albums. In 1967, they had the double-sided hit "Ruby Tuesday"/"Let's Spend the Night Together" and experimented with psychedelic rock on Their Satanic Majesties Request. By the end of the 1960s, they had returned to their rhythm and blues-based rock sound, with hit singles "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (1968) and "Honky Tonk Women" (1969), and albums Beggars Banquet (1968), featuring "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Street Fighting Man", and Let It Bleed (1969), featuring "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and "Gimme Shelter".
Jones left the band shortly before his death in 1969, having been replaced by guitarist Mick Taylor. That year they were first introduced on stage as "the greatest rock and roll band in the world". Sticky Fingers (1971), which yielded "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses" and included the first usage of their tongue and lips logo, was their first of eight consecutive number-one studio albums in the US. It was followed by Exile on Main St. (1972), featuring "Tumbling Dice" and "Happy", and Goats Head Soup (1973), featuring "Angie". Taylor left the band at the end of 1974, and was replaced by Ronnie Wood. The band released Some Girls in 1978, featuring "Miss You", and Tattoo You in 1981, featuring "Start Me Up". Steel Wheels (1989) was widely considered a comeback album and was followed by Voodoo Lounge (1994). Both releases were promoted by large stadium and arena tours, as the Stones continued to be a huge concert attraction; by 2007, they had recorded the all-time highest-grossing concert tour three times, and they were the highest-earning live act of 2021. Following Wyman's departure in 1993, the band continued as a four-piece core, with Darryl Jones becoming their regular bassist, and then as a three-piece core following Watts' death in 2021, with Steve Jordan becoming their regular drummer. Hackney Diamonds, the band's first new album of original material in 18 years, was released in October 2023, becoming their fourteenth UK number-one album.
The Rolling Stones' estimated record sales of more than 250 million make them one of the best-selling music artists of all time. They have won three Grammy Awards and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989 and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2004. Billboard and Rolling Stone have ranked them as one of the greatest artists of all time. (Full article...)
After her divorce from Sonny Bono in 1975, Cher released the successful disco album Take Me Home (1979). Her music career revival in 1987 saw the releases of rock-inflected albums Cher (1987), Heart of Stone (1989), and Love Hurts (1991), all of which yielded hit singles such as "I Found Someone", "If I Could Turn Back Time", and "Save Up All Your Tears". Cher reached a new commercial peak in 1998 with the dance-pop album Believe, which featured pioneering use of Auto-Tune to distort her vocals, known as the "Cher effect". The title track became the number-one song of 1999 in the US and the best-selling single of all time by a female artist in the UK. She continued to make music, with the albums Closer to the Truth (2013) and Dancing Queen (2018) both debuting at number three on the Billboard 200 and becoming her highest-charting solo albums in the US.
Cher became a television personality in the 1970s with her CBS shows The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, watched by over 30 million viewers weekly during its three-year run, and the namesake Cher. In 1982, she made her Broadway debut in the play Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean and starred in its film adaptation. Cher subsequently garnered critical acclaim for her performances in films such as Silkwood (1983), Mask (1985), and Moonstruck (1987), the last of which won her the Academy Award for Best Actress. She contributed to the soundtrack for her next film, Mermaids (1990), which spawned the UK number-one single "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)", and made her directorial debut with a segment in the abortion-themed anthology If These Walls Could Talk (1996). During the 2010s, Cher landed starring roles in the films Burlesque (2010) and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018).
Having sold 100 million records, Cher is one of the world's best-selling music artists. Her accolades include a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Cannes Film Festival award, the Billboard Icon Award, and awards from the Kennedy Center Honors and the Council of Fashion Designers of America. She is the only solo artist to date to have a number-one single on a Billboard chart in seven consecutive decades, from the 1960s to the 2020s. Her 2002–2005 Living Proof: The Farewell Tour became the highest-grossing concert tour by a female artist ever at the time, earning $250 million. Aside from music and acting, she is noted for her trendsetting, elaborate outfits, plastic surgeries, political views, social media presence, philanthropic endeavors, and social activism, including LGBT rights and HIV/AIDS prevention. (Full article...)
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...)
"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...)
Joan Baez and Bob Dylan at a civil rights march on Washington, D.C., 28 August 1963.
- ... that the British rock musician Hannah Grae went viral online with an anti-sexual harassment parody of Aqua's "Barbie Girl"?
- ... that raw material waste from the West influenced a generation of rock music in China?
- ... 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 heavy metal band Judas Priest took their name from Bob Dylan's song "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest"?
- ... that during his tenure as Governor of Central Java, Muhammad Ismail banned rock music concerts and car rallies?
- ... that the Diaspora Yeshiva Band infused rock and bluegrass with Jewish lyrics, creating a music style it called "Hasidic rock" or "Country and Eastern"?
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog) is a broad genre of rock music that primarily developed in the United Kingdom through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Initially termed "progressive pop", the style was an emergence of psychedelic bands who abandoned standard pop traditions in favour of instrumentation and compositional techniques more frequently associated with jazz, folk, or classical music. Additional elements contributed to its "progressive" label: lyrics were more poetic, technology was harnessed for new sounds, music approached the condition of "art", and the studio, rather than the stage, became the focus of musical activity, which often involved creating music for listening rather than dancing. (Full article...)
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Wish You Were Here is the ninth studio album by the English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 12 September 1975 through Harvest Records in the UK and Columbia Records in the US, their first for the label. Based on material Pink Floyd composed while performing in Europe, Wish You Were Here was recorded over numerous sessions throughout 1975 at EMI Studios in London.
The lyrics express alienation and criticism of the music business. The bulk of the album is taken up by "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", a nine-part tribute to the Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett, who had left seven years earlier due to his deteriorating mental health. Barrett coincidentally visited during the recording. As with their previous release, The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), Pink Floyd employed studio effects and synthesisers. Guest singers included Roy Harper, who provided the lead vocals on "Have a Cigar", and Venetta Fields, who added backing vocals to "Shine On You Crazy Diamond". To promote the album, Pink Floyd released the double A-side single "Have a Cigar" / "Welcome to the Machine". (Full article...)- ... 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?
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- ... 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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