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

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Tool is an American rock band from Los Angeles. Formed in 1990, the group consists of vocalist Maynard James Keenan, guitarist Adam Jones, drummer Danny Carey and bassist Justin Chancellor, the latter of whom replaced founding member Paul D'Amour in 1995. Tool has won four Grammy Awards, performed worldwide tours, and produced albums topping the charts in several countries.

To date, the band has released five studio albums, one EP and one box set. It emerged with a heavy metal sound on their first studio album, Undertow (1993), and became a dominant act in the alternative metal movement with the release of their follow-up album Ænima in 1996. The group's efforts to combine musical experimentation, visual arts, and a message of personal evolution continued with Lateralus (2001) and 10,000 Days (2006), gaining critical acclaim and international commercial success. Its fifth studio album Fear Inoculum was released on August 30, 2019, to widespread critical acclaim. Prior to its release, the band had sold more than 13 million albums in the US alone.

Due to Tool's incorporation of visual arts and very long and complex releases, the band is generally described as a style-transcending act and part of progressive rock, psychedelic rock, and art rock. The relationship between the band and today's music industry is ambivalent, at times marked by censorship, and the band's insistence on privacy. (Full article...)

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Adam Noah Levine (/ləˈviːn/ lə-VEEN; born March 18, 1979) is an American singer and musician who serves as the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and sole continuous member of the pop rock band Maroon 5. Levine began his musical career in 1994 with the band Kara's Flowers, of which he was the lead vocalist and lead guitarist. After the commercial failure of their only album, The Fourth World, the group was reformed in 2001 as Maroon 5 – with James Valentine replacing him as lead guitarist. In 2002, they released their first album, Songs About Jane, which went multi-platinum in the US; since then, they have released six more albums: It Won't Be Soon Before Long (2007), Hands All Over (2010), Overexposed (2012), V (pronounced: "five") (2014), Red Pill Blues (2017), and Jordi (2021). As part of Maroon 5, Levine has received multiple accolades, including three Grammy Awards.

From 2011 to 2019, Levine was a coach on NBC's reality talent show The Voice. The winners of multiple seasons (1, 5, and 9) belonged to his team. In 2012, Levine made his acting debut as the recurring character Leo Morrison in the second season of the television series American Horror Story. He also appeared in the films Begin Again (2013), Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016), Fun Mom Dinner and The Clapper (both 2017). Levine launched his eponymous fragrance line in 2013. The same year, he collaborated with Kmart and ShopYourWay.com to develop his menswear collection. He also owns a record label, 222 Records, and a production company, 222 Productions, which produced television shows Sugar and Songland. In 2013, The Hollywood Reporter reported that "sources familiar with his many business dealings" estimated Levine would earn more than $35 million that year. (Full article...)

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Who's Next is the fifth studio album by the English rock band the Who, released on 2 August 1971. It developed from the aborted Lifehouse project, a multi-media rock opera conceived by the group's guitarist Pete Townshend as a follow-up to the band's 1969 album Tommy. The project was cancelled owing to its complexity and to conflicts with Kit Lambert, the band's manager, but the group salvaged some of the songs, without the connecting story elements, to release as their next album. Eight of the nine songs on Who's Next were from Lifehouse, with the lone exception being the John Entwistle-penned "My Wife". Ultimately, the remaining Lifehouse tracks would all be released on other albums throughout the next decade.

The Who recorded Who's Next with assistance from recording engineer Glyn Johns. After producing the song "Won't Get Fooled Again" in the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, they relocated to Olympic Studios to record and mix most of the album's remaining songs. They made prominent use of synthesizer on the album, particularly on "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Baba O'Riley", which were both released as singles. The cover photo was shot by Ethan Russell; it made reference to the monolith in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, as it featured the band standing by a concrete piling protruding from a slag heap in South Yorkshire, apparently having urinated against it.

The album was an immediate critical and commercial success and has since been viewed by many critics as the Who's best album, as well as one of the greatest albums of all time. It has been reissued on CD several times, often with additional songs originally intended for Lifehouse included as bonus tracks. Who's Next was ranked number 77 on Rolling Stones 2020 edition of its "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list. ('Full article...)

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"Call Me When You're Sober" is a song by American rock band Evanescence from their second studio album, The Open Door. It was released as the album's lead single on September 4, 2006. The track was written by Amy Lee and guitarist Terry Balsamo, and produced by Dave Fortman. A musical fusion of alternative metal, symphonic rock, and electropop, the song was inspired by the end of Lee's relationship with singer Shaun Morgan as well as Lee's other experiences at the time.

"Call Me When You're Sober" peaked at number ten on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number four on the Alternative Songs chart, and entered the top ten of several Billboard component charts. It also peaked within the top ten on multiple international charts, including the UK, Australia, Italy, Canada, and New Zealand. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America and gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The song received generally positive reception from music critics. Its music video was directed by Marc Webb, and depicts a metaphorical visual, drawing inspiration from the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood". (Full article...)

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Credit: Rama

Paul Simonon former bassist for The Clash at the Eurockéennes of 2007 with The Good, the Bad & the Queen.

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... that the heavy metal band Cradle of Filth released a T-shirt that was so offensive that several people were arrested for wearing it?
... that Dutch radio and TV presenter Hanneke Kappen presented the second Dutch radio show dedicated to heavy metal music?
... 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 when rock musician Warren Zevon received a terminal diagnosis of lung cancer, he learned to "enjoy every sandwich"?
... that the heavy metal musician Leah has sometimes been called "the metal Enya"?
... that raw material waste from the West influenced a generation of rock music in China?

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Garage rock (sometimes called garage punk or '60s punk) is a raw and energetic style of rock and roll that flourished in the mid-1960s, most notably in the United States and Canada, and has experienced a series of subsequent revivals. The style is characterized by basic chord structures played on electric guitars and other instruments, sometimes distorted through a fuzzbox, as well as often unsophisticated and occasionally aggressive lyrics and delivery. Its name derives from the perception that groups were often made up of young amateurs who rehearsed in the family garage, although many were professional. (Full article...)