Rock is popular music of the 20th century. From the early 1950s to the early 2000s This trend set the tone for the global music industry. For half a century, rock has undergone many transformations. It includes different styles that are significantly different from each other.
Rock and Roll Forerunner
Despite the fact that Elvis Presley is considered the “king of rock and roll”, he was not at all the pioneer of this genre. The first person to make an electric guitar make strange, distorted, but incredibly fiery sounds was Chuck Berry. Actually, it was this African American who released the first single in 1955, who was the founder of rock and roll.
It is also worth noting a musician named Jerry Lee Lewis, whose main instrument, although it was the piano, however, his wild stage behavior became the basis for all future rock and roll artists.
Rock'n'roll
In the early 1960s a new musical genre, rooted in black rhythm and blues, rockabilly and country, reached the UK. It was there that the two most popular and commercially successful rock bands in the world appeared - The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
In the wake of the success of the “Beatles” and “Rolling” in the USA, England and other countries, hundreds of amateur groups began to appear, trying to play fashionable youth music. However, due to the lack of proper professionalism, high-quality equipment and sound recording capabilities, all these ensembles were called “garage rock”, because they were often forced to play and sing in places not suitable for this activity. The most famous groups of this subgenre are The Monkees, The Mamas & The Papas, The Sonics, The Troggs.
In 1967, the American band Velvet Underground released their debut album, which revolutionized the genre. Before Velveteen, rock was entirely devoted to love, parties and other optimistic things, and after that this music began to talk about the "dark sides of life." In fact, VU invented the entire world of "alternative" music.
Their own work possessed modest virtues from a musical point of view, so groups quickly emerged that were able to more effectively develop and present the ideas of the founders. The most influential rock bands of the late 1960s are: The Doors, Iggy & The Stooges and Jimi Henrdix Experience. It is they who are at the origins of psychedelic and hard rock.
Hard rock
In the early 1970s Groups such as AC / DC, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath have gained worldwide fame. They all had one thing in common - they played hard rock or hard rock. New technologies in the field of sound formation and recording made it possible for these guys to play the most powerful and heavy music at that time. The emphasis in hard rock was on the sound, and only secondarily on the content of the songs.
It is worth noting that in the 2000s. classic hard rock has turned into "stoner rock" - an even lower-frequency, viscous and loud kind of music than ever. The main stars of the stoner are Electric Wizard, Queens of The Stone Age and Acid King.
Art rock
Tired of "dubolomnogo" rock, some intelligent and educated musicians decided to take electric guitars and show everyone what real art is. Thus, in the mid-1970s, art rock became popular, it is also progressive rock.
The main difference between art rock and all previous forms of this music is the desire to move away from the root African American blues to the traditions of European academic music. Therefore, the abundant use of synthesizers, violins and other uncharacteristic instruments in art rock was considered natural. The most important bands of this style are Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Yes and Genesis, as well as David Bowie.
Punk
Punk rock arose because the audience was tired of highbrow art rock and demanded something simple and fun. So in the late 1970s punk rock appeared, which in essence was the same as garage rock of the 1960s: fast, primitive, dirty-sounding music about the delights of a rampant lifestyle. The most popular punk band is Sex Pistols, however Exploited and The Dead Kennedys were also successful. They all come from the UK, and in the USA the most important punks were The Ramones and Dead Boys.
Post punk
The founder of the post-punk style is the group Joy Division, which existed from 1978 to 1980. and recorded just two full albums. Nevertheless, the work of this collective laid the foundation for a whole Gothic subculture, since all their songs were devoted to the themes of death, chaos, decay and oblivion. In the wake of the new style, such cult groups as The Cure, Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees and others arose. Musically, post-punk differs from other rock styles with a strong emphasis on the rhythm section and a more “ghostly” sound.
Metal
Metal, which was very popular throughout the 1980s, is a logical development of the ideas of hard rock. The characteristic features of metal rock are extremely harsh, heavy and aggressive sound, as well as the exploitation of topics such as war, violence, mysticism, religion, etc.
There are a large number of subgenres - heavy metal, black metal, speed metal, symphonic metal, industrial metal, etc. The differences between them are in the methods of forming sound and composition (somewhere harder and faster, somewhere more melodic and slower), as well as in technicality. The vast majority of metal style songs are endowed with complex and lengthy guitar solos.
The most popular metal bands: Metallica, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Megadeth, Motorhead, Burzum, Cannibal Corpse, Rammstein, Ministry.
