Hard rock
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
"Hard rock and heavy metal crossed over to rap, rap rock and r&b in the 1980s. There was Aerosmith and Run-D.M.C. with "Walk This Way", there was Van Halen on "Beat It" (1982) and there were the Beastie Boys who included heavy guitars on "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)" (1986)."--Sholem Stein |
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Hard rock (or heavy rock) is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by a heavy use of aggressive vocals, distorted electric guitars, bass guitar, and drums, sometimes accompanied with keyboards. It began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Hard rock developed into a major form of popular music in the 1970s, with bands such as the Who, Boston, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Aerosmith, Kiss, Queen, AC/DC and Van Halen. During the 1980s, some hard-rock bands moved away from their hard-rock roots and more towards pop rock.
Established bands made a comeback in the mid-1980s and hard rock reached a commercial peak in the 1980s, with glam metal bands like Bon Jovi, and Def Leppard and the rawer sounds of Guns N' Roses, which followed up with great success in the later part of that decade.
Hard rock began losing popularity with the commercial success of R&B, hip-hop, urban pop, grunge and later Britpop in the 1990s. Despite this, many post-grunge bands adopted a hard rock sound, and the 2000s saw a renewed interest in established bands, attempts at a revival, and new hard-rock bands that emerged from the garage rock and post-punk revival scenes. Out of this movement came garage rock bands like the White Stripes, the Strokes, Interpol and, later, the Black Keys. In the 2000s only a few hard-rock bands from the 1970s and 1980s managed to sustain highly successful recording careers.
Early years (1960s)
As stated, one of the major influences of hard rock is blues music, especially British blues. British rock bands, such as Cream, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Yardbirds, The Who and The Kinks modified rock and roll, adding to the standard genre harder sounds, heavier guitar riffs, bombastic drumming and louder vocals. This sound created the basis for hard rock. Early forms of hard rock can be heard in the songs "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" by The Yardbirds, "Revolution" and "Helter Skelter" by The Beatles, "I Can See for Miles" by The Who, and "You Really Got Me" by The Kinks.
At the same time, Jimi Hendrix, produced a form of blues-influenced psychedelic rock, which combined elements of jazz, blues and rock and roll, creating a unique genre. He was one of the first guitarists to experiment with new guitar effects like phasing, feedback and distortion, along with Dave Davies of the Kinks, Pete Townshend of The Who, Eric Clapton of Cream, and Jeff Beck of the Yardbirds.
Hard rock emerged with British groups of the late-1960s, such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, who mixed the music of early British rock bands with a more hard-edged form of blues rock and acid rock. Deep Purple helped pioneer the hard rock genre with the albums Shades of Deep Purple (1968), The Book of Taliesyn (1968), and Deep Purple (1969), but they made their big break with their fourth album, Deep Purple in Rock (1970). Led Zeppelin's eponymous first album, Led Zeppelin I (1969), Uriah Heep's Very 'eavy... Very 'umble (1970), and The Who's Live at Leeds (1970), are examples of music from the beginning of the hard rock genre. The blues origins of the albums are clear, and a few songs by well-known blues artists are adapted or covered within them.
