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...)

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various rock music-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Kiss onstage in Boston in 2004 (from Hard rock)
Image 2Elvis Presley in a promotion shot for Jailhouse Rock in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 3Tommy Steele, one of the first British rock and rollers, performing in Stockholm in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 4Original member Izzy Stradlin' on stage with Guns N' Roses in 2006 (from Hard rock)
Image 5Poison, seen here in 2008, were among the most successful acts of the 1980s glam metal era. (from Hard rock)
Image 6Foo Fighters performing an acoustic show in 2007 (from Hard rock)
Image 7Golden Earring receives a gold record in 1970. (from Hard rock)
Image 8Nirvana were at the forefront of the 1990s grunge era. (from Hard rock)
Image 9Buddy Holly and his band, the Crickets (from Rock and roll)
Image 10Rush on stage in Milan, Italy, 2004 (from Hard rock)
Image 11Led Zeppelin live at Chicago Stadium, January 1975 (from Hard rock)
Image 12Wolfmother, 2007 (from Hard rock)
Image 13Aerosmith performing at Quilmes Rock in Buenos Aires, Argentina on April 15, 2007 (from Hard rock)
Image 14The Who on stage in 1975 (from Hard rock)
Image 15Chuck Berry in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 16Baker, Bruce and Clapton of Cream, whose blues rock improvisation was a major factor in the development of the genre (from Hard rock)
Image 17Little Richard in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 18Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson's record "Roll 'Em Pete" is regarded as a precursor to rock and roll. (from Rock and roll)
Image 19Bill Haley and his Comets performing in the 1954 Universal International film Round Up of Rhythm (from Rock and roll)
Image 20"There's No Romance in Rock and Roll" made the cover of True Life Romance in 1956. (from Rock and roll)
Image 21Drum notation for a backbeat (from Hard rock)
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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Lydia Canaan is a Lebanese singer-songwriter, poet, humanitarian activist, and diplomat. She is noted for her four-octave vocal range, unique vocal stylings, songwriting, and for being the first Lebanese artist in music history to achieve global success. Widely regarded as the first "rock star" of the Middle East, she is cataloged in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's Library and Archives.

Canaan first rose to fame in the mid-80s as an adolescent rock singer performing amid enemy attacks during the Lebanese Civil War, holding concerts in vicinities of Lebanon as they were being bombed. Society magazine writes, "in a small country that was ripped by war, there was this young girl making a difference".

Canaan is credited as the first artist in the Middle Eastern region to release English-language music only, and have music videos appear on MTV Global, MTV Russia, MTV Southeast Asia, and MTV Middle East. Her career has been described as having defied tradition, challenged convention, and transcended millennia-old gender barriers. According to Arabian Woman magazine, "as a girl who grew up in the midst of a bloody civil war, Canaan was breaking down seemingly insurmountable barriers ... She rocked the establishment". (Full article...)

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Paul Vaughn Butterfield (December 17, 1942 – May 4, 1987) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and bandleader. After early training as a classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored the blues scene in his native Chicago, where he met Muddy Waters and other blues greats, who provided encouragement and opportunities for him to join in jam sessions. He soon began performing with fellow blues enthusiasts Nick Gravenites and Elvin Bishop.

In 1963, he formed the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which recorded several successful albums and was popular on the late-1960s concert and festival circuit, with performances at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, the Fillmore East in New York City, the Monterey Pop Festival, and Woodstock. The band was known for combining electric Chicago blues with a rock urgency and for their pioneering jazz fusion performances and recordings. The band was also among the first racially integrated blues groups. After the breakup of the group in 1971, Butterfield continued to tour and record with the band Paul Butterfield's Better Days, with his mentor Muddy Waters, and with members of the roots-rock group the Band. While still recording and performing, Butterfield died in 1987 at age 44 of an accidental drug overdose.

Music critics have acknowledged his development of an original approach that places him among the best-known blues harp players. In 2006, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. Butterfield and the early members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. Both panels noted his harmonica skills and his contributions to bringing blues music to a younger and broader audience. (Full article...)

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11 is the eleventh studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Bryan Adams. The album was released by Polydor Records on March 17, 2008. 11 was the first release of new Adams material since Colour Me Kubrick in 2005 and the first studio album in four years since Room Service. Adams, Jim Vallance, Eliot Kennedy, Gretchen Peters, Trevor Rabin and Robert John "Mutt" Lange received producing and writing credits. Similar to Adams' previous material, the themes in 11 are mainly based on love, romance, and relationships. 11 received generally mixed reviews from contemporary music critics.

Three songs were released from the album in various forms: "I Thought I'd Seen Everything", "Tonight We Have the Stars" and "She's Got a Way", of which all were released internationally. "I Thought I'd Seen Everything" was the only one to have any lasting effects on the music chart, reaching mostly the Top 50, Top 100 and Top 200 in Europe and Canada. Adams was nominated for a Juno Award in the category "Best Artist" in 2009 for this record.

The album peaked within the top ten in eleven territories worldwide, including Canada (with sales just below 10,000 units in its first week), the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland. 11 charted within the top twenty in three other territories. (Full article...)

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"What You Want" is a song by American rock band Evanescence. It was released as the lead single from the band's third eponymous album on August 9, 2011 through Wind-up Records. The song was written by Amy Lee, Terry Balsamo and Tim McCord and produced by Nick Raskulinecz. Lee described "What You Want" as a departure from the band's previous sound and said she was inspired to write the song by several experiences she had with her fans. Musically "What You Want" contains a variety of musical elements and it uses drums, guitars, synthesizers and a piano. Lyrically, the song has a theme of freedom.

Upon its release, "What You Want" received positive reviews from music critics who praised its instrumentation, Lee's vocals and the song's musical hook; several of them listed it as an album highlight. The song peaked at number 68 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and achieved higher success in its component charts. It also peaked at number 55 on the Canadian Hot 100, topped the UK Rock Chart and appeared in eight charts in different countries.

The music video for "What You Want" was filmed in Brooklyn, New York and it was directed by Meiert Avis and Stefan Smith. It shows the band performing the song live in a small warehouse and Lee running in various locations. The video received positive response from critics who generally praised the imagery. "What You Want" was performed live for the first time on MTV and later on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. It was added to the set list of the band's third world tour, Evanescence Tour (2011-2012). (Full article...)

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Credit: Vassil

Enzifer, a guitarist for Urgehal, a black metal band from Norway, wearing corpse paint and performing in Belgium.

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... that raw material waste from the West influenced a generation of rock music in China?
... that the British rock musician Hannah Grae went viral online with an anti-sexual harassment parody of Aqua's "Barbie Girl"?
... 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 during his tenure as Governor of Central Java, Muhammad Ismail banned rock music concerts and car rallies?
... that Skálmöld & Sinfóníuhljómsveit Íslands documents a symphony orchestra playing heavy metal music?
... that Greg Cooper based the character of suffragist Kate Sheppard in punk-rock musical That Bloody Woman on Bette Midler in concert in Cleveland?

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Viking metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by a lyrical and thematic focus on Norse mythology, Norse paganism, and the Viking Age. Viking metal is quite diverse as a musical style, to the point where some consider it more a cross-genre term than a genre, but it is typically seen as black metal with influences from Nordic folk music. Common traits include a slow-paced and heavy riffing style, anthemic choruses, use of both sung and harsh vocals, a reliance on folk instrumentation, and often the use of keyboards for atmospheric effect. (Full article...)