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

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

edit

Selected article

Art Garfunkel (left) and Paul Simon performing in Dublin, 1982.

Simon & Garfunkel were an American folk rock duo consisting of the singer-songwriter Paul Simon and the singer Art Garfunkel. They were one of the best-selling music groups of the 1960s, and songs including "The Sound of Silence" (1965), "Mrs. Robinson" (1968), "The Boxer" (1969) and "Bridge over Troubled Water" (1970) reached number one on singles charts worldwide.

Simon and Garfunkel met in elementary school in Queens, New York, in 1953, where they learned to harmonize and began writing songs. As teenagers, under the name Tom & Jerry, they had minor success with "Hey Schoolgirl" (1957), a song imitating their idols, the Everly Brothers. In 1963, aware of a growing public interest in folk music, they regrouped and were signed to Columbia Records as Simon & Garfunkel. Their debut album, Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., sold poorly; Simon returned to a solo career, this time in England. In June 1965, a new version of "The Sound of Silence" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The duo reunited to release a second studio album, Sounds of Silence, and tour colleges nationwide. On their third release, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1966), they assumed more creative control. Their music was featured in the 1967 film The Graduate, giving them further exposure. Their next album Bookends (1968) topped the Billboard 200 chart and included the number-one single "Mrs. Robinson" from the film.

Simon and Garfunkel had a troubled relationship, leading to artistic disagreements and their breakup in 1970. Their final studio album, Bridge over Troubled Water, was released that January, becoming one of the world's best-selling albums. After their breakup, Simon released a number of acclaimed albums, including 1986's Graceland. Garfunkel released solo hits such as "All I Know" and briefly pursued an acting career, with leading roles in the Mike Nichols films Catch-22 and Carnal Knowledge and in Nicolas Roeg's 1980 Bad Timing. The duo have reunited several times; their 1981 concert in Central Park may have attracted more than 500,000 people, one of the largest concert attendances in history.

Simon & Garfunkel won 7 Grammy Awards and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. Richie Unterberger described them as "the most successful folk-rock duo of the 1960s" and one of the most popular artists from the decade. They are among the best-selling music artists, having sold more than 100 million records. They were ranked 40th on Rolling Stone's 2010 list of the Greatest Artists of All Time and third on its list of the greatest duos. (Full article...)

More selected articles

Good article

Read more

edit

Selected biography

Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television personality. Perry is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold over 143 million units worldwide. She is known for her influence on pop music and her camp style, being dubbed the "Queen of Camp" by Vogue and Rolling Stone. With an estimated net worth of $350 million, Perry is one of the world's wealthiest musicians.

At 16, Perry released a gospel record titled Katy Hudson (2001) under Red Hill Records, which was commercially unsuccessful. She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music, and later adopted the stage name "Katy Perry" from her mother's maiden name. She recorded an album while signed to Columbia Records, but was dropped before signing to Capitol Records. Perry rose to fame with One of the Boys (2008), a pop rock record containing her debut single "I Kissed a Girl" and follow-up single "Hot n Cold", which reached number one and three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 respectively.

The disco-influenced pop album Teenage Dream (2010) spawned five U.S. number one singles—"California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)"— the only album by a female singer to do so. The album's reissue titled Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection (2012) produced the U.S. number one single "Part of Me". Her empowerment-themed album Prism (2013) had two U.S. number one singles, "Roar" and "Dark Horse". Both their respective music videos made Perry the first artist to have multiple videos reach one billion views on Vevo and YouTube. Afterwards, she released the albums Witness (2017) and Smile (2020) and embarked on her Las Vegas concert residency titled Play (2021–2023). She is slated to release her seventh studio album, titled 143, in September 2024.

All of Perry's major-label studio albums have individually surpassed one billion streams on Spotify. She has the second-most U.S. diamond certified singles for any female artist (6). She has received various accolades, including a Billboard Spotlight Award, four Guinness World Records, five Billboard Music Awards, five American Music Awards, a Brit Award, and a Juno Award. Outside of music, she released an autobiographical documentary titled Katy Perry: Part of Me in 2012, voiced Smurfette in The Smurfs film series, and launched her own shoe line Katy Perry Collections in 2017. Perry served as a judge on American Idol from the sixteenth season in 2018 to the twenty-second season in 2024. Forbes ranked Perry as the world's highest-paid female musician in 2015 and 2018. (Full article...)

More selected biographies

Featured article

Read more

edit

Selected album

Freak Out! is the debut studio album by the American rock band the Mothers of Invention, released on June 27, 1966, by Verve Records. Often cited as one of rock music's first concept albums, it is a satirical expression of guitarist/bandleader Frank Zappa's perception of American pop culture and the nascent freak scene of Los Angeles. It was the second rock music double album ever released, following Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde just one week earlier, as well as the first double debut album by a rock artist. In the UK, the album was originally released as an edited single disc.

The album was produced by Tom Wilson, who signed the Mothers, formerly a bar band called the Soul Giants. Zappa said many years later that Wilson signed the band to a record deal under the impression that they were a white blues band. The album features Zappa on vocals and guitar, along with lead vocalist/tambourine player Ray Collins, bass player/vocalist Roy Estrada, drummer/vocalist Jimmy Carl Black and guitar player Elliot Ingber (later of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, performing there under the pseudonym "Winged Eel Fingerling").

The band's original repertoire consisted of rhythm and blues covers, but after Zappa joined the band, he encouraged them to play his own original material, and their name was changed to the Mothers. The musical content of Freak Out! ranges from rhythm and blues, doo-wop, and standard blues-influenced rock to orchestral arrangements and avant-garde sound collages. Although the album was initially poorly received in the United States, it was a success in Europe. It gained a cult following in America, where it continued to sell in substantial quantities until it was discontinued in the early 1970s. The album went back in print in 1985, as part of Zappa's Old Masters Box One box set, with the first CD release of the album following in 1987.

In 1999, the album was honored with the Grammy Hall of Fame Award, and in 2003, Rolling Stone ranked it among the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2006, The MOFO Project/Object, an audio documentary on the making of the album, was released in honor of its 40th anniversary. (Full article...)

More selected albums

Read more

edit

Selected song

"I'm Goin' Down" is a rock song written and performed by American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen. It was released on August 27, 1985 by Columbia Records as the sixth single from his 1984 album Born in the U.S.A. The song was recorded with the E Street Band in May 1982 at Power Station studio in New York City, and co-produced by Springsteen, Jon Landau, Chuck Plotkin, and Steve Van Zandt. Although Springsteen had changing ideas about the songs to put on the album, "I'm Goin' Down" was ultimately selected for inclusion.

The recording is based on an energetic band performance that gives prominence to a heavy drum sound. The lyrics focus on sexual frustration in a deteriorating relationship. The single reached No. 9 on both Billboard and Cash Box and top 30 in Sweden, Italy, and Canada. On the album's release, it was praised by critics for the band's musicianship and Springsteen's vocals and lyrics. Later it received favorable rankings in retrospectives of Springsteen's career, among which was an NME list calling it his fourth best song.

Springsteen has not often performed the song since the Born in the U.S.A. Tour. Between 2002 and 2023, it appeared on about 6.5 percent of the set lists published on his official website. "I'm Goin' Down" has been covered by Frank Black and the Catholics, Trampled by Turtles, Free Energy, Vampire Weekend, and other artists. (Full article...)

More selected songs

Read more

edit

Selected picture

Credit: William McElligott

(Then) Cat Stevens in Boeblingen, Germany in 1976.

More selected pictures

Read more

Did you know (auto-generated)

... that raw material waste from the West influenced a generation of rock music in China?
... that heavy metal led Ossian D'Ambrosio to druidism?
... that the British rock musician Hannah Grae went viral online with an anti-sexual harassment parody of Aqua's "Barbie Girl"?
... that heavy metal band Judas Priest took their name from Bob Dylan's song "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest"?
... that when rock musician Warren Zevon received a terminal diagnosis of lung cancer, he learned to "enjoy every sandwich"?
... that Dutch radio and TV presenter Hanneke Kappen presented the second Dutch radio show dedicated to heavy metal music?

edit

Selected genre

Glam metal (also known as hair metal or pop metal) is a subgenre of heavy metal that features pop-influenced hooks and guitar riffs, upbeat rock anthems, and slow power ballads. It borrows heavily from the fashion and image of 1970s glam rock.

Early glam metal evolved directly from the glam rock movement of the 1970s, as visual elements taken from acts such as T. Rex, the New York Dolls, and David Bowie (and to a lesser extent, the punk and new wave movements taking place concurrently in New York City) were fused with the decidedly more heavy metal leaning and theatrical acts such as Alice Cooper and Kiss. The first examples of this fusion began appearing in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United States, particularly on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip music scene. Early glam metal bands include Mötley Crüe, Hanoi Rocks, Night Ranger, Ratt, Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister, Bon Jovi, and Dokken. Glam metal achieved significant commercial success from approximately 1982 to 1991, bringing to prominence bands such as Poison, Skid Row, Cinderella and Warrant. From a strictly visual perspective, glam metal is defined by flashy and tight-fitting clothing, makeup, and an overall androgynous aesthetic in which the traditional "denim & leather" aspect of heavy metal culture is replaced by spandex, lace, and usually heavy use of bright colours. (Full article...)