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

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Life is a memoir by the Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, written with the assistance of journalist James Fox. Published in October 2010, in hardback, audio and e-book formats, the book chronicles Richards' love of music, charting influences from his mother and maternal grandfather, through his discovery of blues music, the founding of the Rolling Stones, his often turbulent relationship with Mick Jagger, his involvement with drugs, and his relationships with women including Anita Pallenberg and his wife Patti Hansen. Richards also released Vintage Vinos, a compilation of his work with the X-Pensive Winos, at the same time.

Co-writer James Fox interviewed Richards and his associates over a period of five years to produce the book. Life was generally well received by critics and topped The New York Times non-fiction list in the first week of release. (Full article...)

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Philip David Ochs (/ˈoʊks/; December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American songwriter and protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer). Ochs was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, political activism, often alliterative lyrics, and distinctive voice. He wrote hundreds of songs from the 1960s to early 1970s and released eight albums.

Ochs performed at many political events during the 1960s counterculture era, including anti-Vietnam War and civil rights rallies, student events, and organized labor events over the course of his career, in addition to many concert appearances at such venues as New York City's Town Hall and Carnegie Hall. Politically, Ochs described himself as a "left social democrat" who became an "early revolutionary" after the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago led to a police riot, which had a profound effect on his state of mind.

After years of prolific writing in the 1960s, Ochs's mental stability declined in the 1970s. He had a number of mental health problems, including depression, bipolar disorder and alcoholism, and died by suicide in 1976.

Ochs's influences included Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Bob Gibson, Faron Young, and Merle Haggard. His best-known songs include "I Ain't Marching Anymore", "When I'm Gone", "Changes", "Crucifixion", "Draft Dodger Rag", "Love Me, I'm a Liberal", "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends", "Power and the Glory", "There but for Fortune", "The War Is Over", and "No More Songs". (Full article...)

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Idlewild South is the second studio album by American southern rock band the Allman Brothers Band. Produced by Tom Dowd, the album was released on September 23, 1970 in the United States by Atco Records and Capricorn Records. Following the release of their 1969 debut, the Allman Brothers Band toured the United States extensively to promote the album, which had little commercial success. Their performances, however, did create positive word of mouth exposure that extended to more famous musicians, such as Eric Clapton, who invited group leader Duane Allman to contribute to his 1970 album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.

As a result of the band's relentless touring schedule, Idlewild South was recorded gradually over a period of five months in various cities, including New York, Miami, and Macon, Georgia, the band's adopted home. Tom Dowd had previously been sought to record the group's debut but had been unavailable. The material presented on Idlewild South was written during this period and tested out on the road at shows. The album's title comes from the band's nickname for a rustic cabin the band rented out and used for rehearsals, as well as parties. Idlewild South contains two of the band's best-known songs, "Midnight Rider" (later a hit for various artists) and "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed", which became one of the band's famous concert numbers.

The album was released in September 1970 but again failed to achieve significant success. Sales began to grow, however, due to over 300 shows the band put on in 1970, setting the stage for their artistic and commercial breakthrough with 1971's live follow-up album, At Fillmore East. Following the band's increased fame in the early 1970s, this album and its self-titled debut, The Allman Brothers Band, were repackaged into the compilation album Beginnings. In 1973, Beginnings was certified gold for sales of 500,000 copies, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. (Full article...)

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"Tomorrow Never Knows" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written primarily by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was released in August 1966 as the final track on their album Revolver, although it was the first song recorded for the LP. The song marked a radical departure for the Beatles, as the band fully embraced the potential of the recording studio without consideration for reproducing the results in concert.

When writing the song, Lennon drew inspiration from his experiences with the hallucinogenic drug LSD and from the 1964 book The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert and Ralph Metzner. The Beatles' recording employed musical elements foreign to pop music, including musique concrète, avant-garde composition and electro-acoustic sound manipulation. It features an Indian-inspired modal backing of tambura and sitar drone and bass guitar, with minimal harmonic deviation from a single chord, underpinned by a constant but non-standard drum pattern; added to this, tape loops prepared by the band were overdubbed "live" onto the rhythm track. Part of Lennon's vocal was fed through a Leslie speaker cabinet, normally used for a Hammond organ. The song's reverse guitar parts and effects marked the first use of reversed sounds in a pop recording, although the Beatles' 1966 B-side "Rain", which they recorded soon afterwards using the same technique, was issued over two months before the release of Revolver.

"Tomorrow Never Knows" was an early and highly influential recording in the psychedelic and electronic music genres, particularly for its pioneering use of sampling, tape manipulation and other production techniques. It also introduced lyrical themes that espoused mind expansion, anti-materialism and Eastern spirituality into popular music. On release, the song was the source of confusion and ridicule by many fans and journalists; it has since received praise as an effective representation of a psychedelic experience. Pitchfork placed the track at number 19 on its list of "The 200 Greatest Songs of the 1960s", and Rolling Stone ranked it at number 18 on the magazine's list of the 100 greatest Beatles songs. (Full article...)

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Credit: Carlos Delgado CC-BY-SA

Steve Morse of Deep Purple performing at Músicos en la naturaleza 2013 in Hoyos del Espino, Ávila, Spain.

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... 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 heavy metal band Judas Priest took their name from Bob Dylan's song "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest"?
... 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 the British rock musician Hannah Grae went viral online with an anti-sexual harassment parody of Aqua's "Barbie Girl"?
... that heavy metal led Ossian D'Ambrosio to druidism?

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Industrial metal is the fusion of heavy metal and industrial music, typically employing repeating metal guitar riffs, sampling, synthesizer or sequencer lines, and distorted vocals. Prominent industrial metal acts include Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Rammstein, KMFDM, and Godflesh.

Industrial metal developed in the late 1980s, as industrial and metal began to fuse into a common genre. Industrial metal did well in the early 1990s, particularly in North America, with the success of groups such as Nine Inch Nails, but its popularity began to fade in the latter half of the 1990s. (Full article...)

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