Portal:Rock music

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

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 1Wolfmother, 2007 (from Hard rock)
Image 2Tommy Steele, one of the first British rock and rollers, performing in Stockholm in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 3Little Richard in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 4Aerosmith performing at Quilmes Rock in Buenos Aires, Argentina on April 15, 2007 (from Hard rock)
Image 5Elvis Presley in a promotion shot for Jailhouse Rock in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 6Buddy Holly and his band, the Crickets (from Rock and roll)
Image 7Sign commemorating the role of Alan Freed and Cleveland, Ohio, in the origins of rock and roll (from Rock and roll)
Image 8"There's No Romance in Rock and Roll" made the cover of True Life Romance in 1956. (from Rock and roll)
Image 9Drum notation for a backbeat (from Hard rock)
Image 10Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson's record "Roll 'Em Pete" is regarded as a precursor to rock and roll. (from Rock and roll)
Image 11The Who on stage in 1975 (from Hard rock)
Image 12Nirvana were at the forefront of the 1990s grunge era. (from Hard rock)
Image 13Led Zeppelin live at Chicago Stadium, January 1975 (from Hard rock)
Image 14Golden Earring receives a gold record in 1970. (from Hard rock)
Image 15Kiss onstage in Boston in 2004 (from Hard rock)
Image 16Poison, seen here in 2008, were among the most successful acts of the 1980s glam metal era. (from Hard rock)
Image 17Chuck Berry in 1957 (from Rock and roll)
Image 18Bill Haley and his Comets performing in the 1954 Universal International film Round Up of Rhythm (from Rock and roll)
Image 19Baker, Bruce and Clapton of Cream, whose blues rock improvisation was a major factor in the development of the genre (from Hard rock)
Image 20Original member Izzy Stradlin' on stage with Guns N' Roses in 2006 (from Hard rock)
Image 21Foo Fighters performing an acoustic show in 2007 (from Hard rock)
Image 22Rush on stage in Milan, Italy, 2004 (from Hard rock)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

edit

Selected article

Velvet Revolver was an American hard rock supergroup consisting of Guns N' Roses members Slash (lead guitar), Duff McKagan (bass, backing vocals) and Matt Sorum (drums, backing vocals), alongside Dave Kushner (rhythm guitar) formerly of punk band Wasted Youth, and Scott Weiland (lead vocalist) formerly of Stone Temple Pilots. The band formed in 2002 and was active until 2008, when Weiland left the band abruptly to rejoin Stone Temple Pilots.

In 2004, the band achieved commercial success with their debut album, Contraband. Despite positive reviews, some critics initially described Velvet Revolver as a mere combination of Stone Temple Pilots and Guns N' Roses, and criticized them for a "disconnection" between Weiland and the rest of the band. With their single "Slither", they won the 2005 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance. The band released Libertad in 2007, driven by the release of the single "She Builds Quick Machines", and embarked on a tour with Alice in Chains.

In April 2008, Weiland was fired from Velvet Revolver and reunited with Stone Temple Pilots. Velvet Revolver was put on indefinite hiatus and in November of that year, requested to be released by their record label RCA Records to allow themselves "complete freedom to go through whatever process it would take to accomplish" replacing Weiland.

Although Velvet Revolver worked on new material and auditioned new singers following Scott Weiland's departure, the band has not released any new material and only performed publicly once since 2008, when they reunited with Weiland for a one-off reunion show on January 12, 2012, at a benefit concert. This proved to be their last performance together before Weiland's death on December 3, 2015. Slash and McKagan rejoined Guns N' Roses in 2016. (Full article...)

More selected articles

Good article

Read more

edit

Selected biography

Robert Clark Seger (/ˈsiːɡər/ SEE-gər; born May 6, 1945) is a retired American singer, songwriter, and musician. As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded with the groups Bob Seger and the Last Heard and the Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s, breaking through with his first album, Ramblin' Gamblin' Man (which contained his first national hit of the same name) in 1969. By the early 1970s, he had dropped the 'System' from his recordings and continued to strive for broader success with various other bands. In 1973, he put together the Silver Bullet Band, with a group of Detroit-area musicians, with whom he became most successful on the national level with the album Live Bullet (1976), recorded live with the Silver Bullet Band in 1975 at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan. In 1976, he achieved a national breakout with the studio album Night Moves. On his studio albums, he also worked extensively with the Alabama-based Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, which appeared on several of Seger's best-selling singles and albums.

A roots rocker with a classic raspy, powerful voice, Seger wrote and recorded songs that dealt with love, women, and blue-collar themes, and is one of the best-known examples of a heartland rock artist. He has recorded many hits, including "Night Moves", "Turn the Page", "Mainstreet", "Still the Same", "Hollywood Nights", "Against the Wind", "You'll Accomp'ny Me", "Shame on the Moon", "Roll Me Away", "Like a Rock", and "Shakedown", the last of which was written for the 1987 film Beverly Hills Cop II and topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart. He also co-wrote the Eagles' number-one hit "Heartache Tonight", and his recording of "Old Time Rock and Roll" was named one of the Songs of the Century in 2001.

With a career spanning six decades, Seger has sold more than 75 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time. Seger was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2012. Seger was named Billboard's 2015 Legend of Live honoree at the 12th annual Billboard Touring Conference & Awards, held November 18–19 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. His farewell tour took place in 2018 and 2019. (Full article...)

More selected biographies

Read more

edit

Selected album

The Hunting Party is the sixth studio album by American rock band Linkin Park. The album, produced by band members Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson, was released by Warner Bros. Records and Machine Shop on June 13, 2014. It is the first album since Meteora (2003) not to be produced with Rick Rubin, who produced the band's previous three studio albums.

Stylistically, The Hunting Party is a departure from the electronic rock and experimental sound of the band's previous two studio albums, A Thousand Suns (2010) and Living Things (2012) and marks a return to the band’s nu metal sound. The album, described by Shinoda as simply "a rock record", serves as a statement by the band against contemporary mainstream and active rock bands, accused by him as "trying to be other bands and playing it safe". Packaged by an artwork by Brandon Parvini based on an original drawing by James Jean, the album took under a year to record and produce, with material being improvisationally written by the band. The album also features guest appearances from Helmet's Page Hamilton, System of a Down's Daron Malakian, Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello, and Rakim, marking the first time Linkin Park has collaborated with other artists on a studio album.

The album was promoted by the band and Warner Bros, with multiple promotional teasers and interviews produced and published in the lead-up to the album's release and listening parties of the album being held worldwide on multiple dates. The band embarked on the Carnivores Tour, a double-headline tour with Thirty Seconds to Mars, as well as The Hunting Party Tour, in support of the album. Five singles from The Hunting Party have been released; "Guilty All the Same" in March 2014, "Until It's Gone" in May 2014, and "Wastelands", "Rebellion" and "Final Masquerade" in June 2014.

The album received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its return to the heavier rock sound of their older albums. It debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200, and has placed at number four on Revolver's list of "The 20 Best Albums of 2014". The album was certified Platinum in United States for the sales of one million copies. (Full article...)

More selected albums

Read more

edit

Selected song

"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" is a song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan and first released on his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. It was written in the summer of 1964, first performed live on October 10, 1964, and recorded on January 15, 1965. It is described by Dylan biographer Howard Sounes as a "grim masterpiece".

Among the well-known lines sung in the song are "He not busy being born is busy dying," "Money doesn't talk, it swears," "Although the masters make the rules, for the wisemen and the fools" and "But even the president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked." The lyrics express Dylan's anger at the perceived hypocrisy, commercialism, consumerism, and war mentality in contemporary American culture. Dylan's preoccupations in the lyrics, nevertheless, extend beyond the socio-political, expressing existential concerns, touching on urgent matters of personal experience.

Dylan said that "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" is one of his songs that means the most to him, and he has played the song often in live concerts. Since its original release on Bringing It All Back Home, live versions of the song have been issued on The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert at Philharmonic Hall, Before the Flood, The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings, and Bob Dylan at Budokan. Dylan can also be seen performing the song in the film Dont Look Back and the video of the HBO special Hard to Handle. The song has been covered by a number of other artists, including Roger McGuinn, the Byrds, Billy Preston, Hugo Race, Terence Trent D'Arby, Mick Farren, Caetano Veloso, Marilyn Scott, and The Duhks. (Full article...)

More selected songs

Read more

edit

Selected picture

Credit: Takahiro Kyono

Leonard Cohen performing at King's Garden, Odense, Denmark, on 17 August 2013.

More selected pictures

Read more

Did you know (auto-generated)

... that the Liverpool Echo described British rock and roll star Tommy Steele as "quite unable to sing and play the guitar at the same time" when reviewing his first album?
... 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?
... 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 during his tenure as Governor of Central Java, Muhammad Ismail banned rock music concerts and car rallies?
... 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?

edit

Selected genre

Psychedelic rock is a rock music genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound effects and recording techniques, extended instrumental solos, and improvisation. Many psychedelic groups differ in style, and the label is often applied spuriously.

Originating in the mid-1960s among British and American musicians, the sound of psychedelic rock invokes three core effects of LSD: depersonalization, dechronicization (the bending of time), and dynamization (when fixed, ordinary objects dissolve into moving, dancing structures), all of which detach the user from everyday reality. Musically, the effects may be represented via novelty studio tricks, electronic or non-Western instrumentation, disjunctive song structures, and extended instrumental segments. Some of the earlier 1960s psychedelic rock musicians were based in folk, jazz, and the blues, while others showcased an explicit Indian classical influence called "raga rock". In the 1960s, there existed two main variants of the genre: the more whimsical, surrealist British psychedelia and the harder American West Coast "acid rock". While "acid rock" is sometimes deployed interchangeably with the term "psychedelic rock", it also refers more specifically to the heavier, harder, and more extreme ends of the genre. (Full article...)