Rock music is a form of popular music with a prominent vocal melody accompanied by guitar, drums, and bass. Many styles of rock music also use keyboard instruments such as organ, piano, or synthesizers. Other instruments sometimes utilized in rock include harmonica, violin, flute, banjo and less common stringed instruments such as mandolin and sitar. Rock music usually has a strong back beat, and often revolves around guitar, either electric or acoustic.
Rock music has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll and rockabilly, which evolved from blues, country music and other influences. According to All Music Guide, "In its purest form, Rock & Roll has three chords, a strong, insistent back beat, and a catchy melody. Early rock & roll drew from a variety of sources, primarily blues, R&B, and country, but also gospel, traditional pop, jazz, and folk. All of these influences combined in a simple, blues-based song structure that was fast, danceable, and catchy."[1]
In the late 1960s, rock music was blended with folk music to create folk rock, blues to create blues rock and with jazz, to create jazz-rock fusion, and without a time signature to create psychedelic rock. In the 1970s, rock incorporated influences from soul, funk, and latin music. Also in the 1970s, rock developed a number of subgenres, such as soft rock, heavy metal, hard rock, progressive rock, and punk rock. Rock subgenres that emerged in the 1980s included synth-rock, hardcore punk and alternative rock. In the 1990s, rock subgenres included grunge, Britpop, indie rock, and nu metal.
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Soft rock
Rock music had a short-lived "bubble gum pop" era, of soft rock, including groups such as The Partridge Family, The Cowsills, The Osmonds, and The Archies. Other bands or artists added more orchestration and created a popular genre known as soft rock. Performers included Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, Olivia Newton-John, and Eric Carmen, and groups such as Bread, The Carpenters, Electric Light Orchestra, England Dan & John Ford Coley, and Tina Turner
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Hard rock and heavy metal
A second wave of British and American rock bands became popular during the late 1960s to the 1970s, with groups that were more steeped in American blues music than their more pop-oriented predecessors. Bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, Status Quo, Aerosmith, Queen, Black Sabbath, and Uriah Heep played highly amplified, guitar-driven hard rock that would come to be known as heavy metal. Heavy metal languished into obscurity in the late 1970s. A few bands including Kiss, Queen, Black Sabbath,AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith maintained large followings and there were occasional mainstream hits such as Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) the Reaper". Music critics overwhelmingly disliked the genre. This began to change in 1978 following the release of Van Halen's eponymous, self-titled debut album. The album helped to usher in an era of high-energy rock and roll, based out of Los Angeles, California
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New Wave
Punk rock attracted devotees from the art and collegiate world and soon bands sporting a more literate, arty approach, such as the Talking Heads, and Devo began to infiltrate the punk scene; in some quarters the description New Wave began to be used to differentiate these less overtly punk bands.
If punk rock was a social and musical phenomenon, it garnered little in the way of record sales (small specialty labels such as Stiff Records had released much of the punk music to date) or American radio airplay, as the radio scene continued to be dominated by mainstream formats such as disco and album-oriented rock. Record executives, who had been mostly mystified by the punk movement, recognized the potential of the more accessible New Wave acts and began aggressively signing and marketing any band that could claim a remote connection to punk or New Wave. Many of these bands, such as The Cars and the Go-Go's were essentially pop bands dressed up in New Wave regalia; others, including the Police and the Pretenders managed to parlay the boost of the New Wave movement into long-lived and artistically lauded careers.
Between 1982 and 1985, influenced by Kraftwerk and Gary Numan, New Wave went in the direction of such New Romantics as Duran Duran, A Flock of Seagulls, Psychedelic Furs, Talk Talk and the Eurythmics, sometimes using the synthesizer to replace all other instruments. This period coincided with the rise of MTV and led to a great deal of exposure for this brand of synth-pop. Some rock bands reinvented themselves and profited too from MTV's airplay, for instance Golden Earring, who had a second round of success with "Twilight Zone", but in general the times of guitar-oriented rock were over. Although many "Greatest of New Wave" collections feature popular songs from this era, New Wave more properly refers to the earlier "skinny tie" rock bands such as the Knack or Blondie.
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Instrumental rock
Instrumental rock was also popularised during this period with Joe Satriani's release of Surfing with the Alien. Many guitarists, feeling constrained by the style of music performed by their respective bands, began releasing solo albums that showcased their guitar skills. Guitarists such as George Lynch, Steve Vai, Tony MacAlpine, Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Morse have all greatly contributed to the genre
Rock music has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll and rockabilly, which evolved from blues, country music and other influences. According to All Music Guide, "In its purest form, Rock & Roll has three chords, a strong, insistent back beat, and a catchy melody. Early rock & roll drew from a variety of sources, primarily blues, R&B, and country, but also gospel, traditional pop, jazz, and folk. All of these influences combined in a simple, blues-based song structure that was fast, danceable, and catchy."[1]
In the late 1960s, rock music was blended with folk music to create folk rock, blues to create blues rock and with jazz, to create jazz-rock fusion, and without a time signature to create psychedelic rock. In the 1970s, rock incorporated influences from soul, funk, and latin music. Also in the 1970s, rock developed a number of subgenres, such as soft rock, heavy metal, hard rock, progressive rock, and punk rock. Rock subgenres that emerged in the 1980s included synth-rock, hardcore punk and alternative rock. In the 1990s, rock subgenres included grunge, Britpop, indie rock, and nu metal.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Soft rock
Rock music had a short-lived "bubble gum pop" era, of soft rock, including groups such as The Partridge Family, The Cowsills, The Osmonds, and The Archies. Other bands or artists added more orchestration and created a popular genre known as soft rock. Performers included Barry Manilow, Neil Diamond, Olivia Newton-John, and Eric Carmen, and groups such as Bread, The Carpenters, Electric Light Orchestra, England Dan & John Ford Coley, and Tina Turner
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hard rock and heavy metal
A second wave of British and American rock bands became popular during the late 1960s to the 1970s, with groups that were more steeped in American blues music than their more pop-oriented predecessors. Bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, Status Quo, Aerosmith, Queen, Black Sabbath, and Uriah Heep played highly amplified, guitar-driven hard rock that would come to be known as heavy metal. Heavy metal languished into obscurity in the late 1970s. A few bands including Kiss, Queen, Black Sabbath,AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith maintained large followings and there were occasional mainstream hits such as Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) the Reaper". Music critics overwhelmingly disliked the genre. This began to change in 1978 following the release of Van Halen's eponymous, self-titled debut album. The album helped to usher in an era of high-energy rock and roll, based out of Los Angeles, California
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New Wave
Punk rock attracted devotees from the art and collegiate world and soon bands sporting a more literate, arty approach, such as the Talking Heads, and Devo began to infiltrate the punk scene; in some quarters the description New Wave began to be used to differentiate these less overtly punk bands.
If punk rock was a social and musical phenomenon, it garnered little in the way of record sales (small specialty labels such as Stiff Records had released much of the punk music to date) or American radio airplay, as the radio scene continued to be dominated by mainstream formats such as disco and album-oriented rock. Record executives, who had been mostly mystified by the punk movement, recognized the potential of the more accessible New Wave acts and began aggressively signing and marketing any band that could claim a remote connection to punk or New Wave. Many of these bands, such as The Cars and the Go-Go's were essentially pop bands dressed up in New Wave regalia; others, including the Police and the Pretenders managed to parlay the boost of the New Wave movement into long-lived and artistically lauded careers.
Between 1982 and 1985, influenced by Kraftwerk and Gary Numan, New Wave went in the direction of such New Romantics as Duran Duran, A Flock of Seagulls, Psychedelic Furs, Talk Talk and the Eurythmics, sometimes using the synthesizer to replace all other instruments. This period coincided with the rise of MTV and led to a great deal of exposure for this brand of synth-pop. Some rock bands reinvented themselves and profited too from MTV's airplay, for instance Golden Earring, who had a second round of success with "Twilight Zone", but in general the times of guitar-oriented rock were over. Although many "Greatest of New Wave" collections feature popular songs from this era, New Wave more properly refers to the earlier "skinny tie" rock bands such as the Knack or Blondie.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Instrumental rock
Instrumental rock was also popularised during this period with Joe Satriani's release of Surfing with the Alien. Many guitarists, feeling constrained by the style of music performed by their respective bands, began releasing solo albums that showcased their guitar skills. Guitarists such as George Lynch, Steve Vai, Tony MacAlpine, Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Morse have all greatly contributed to the genre
