Rock music
Rock, in its broadest sense, can refer to almost all popular music recorded since the early 1950s. Its main features include an emphasis on rhythm, and the use of amplified instruments like the guitar.
Its earliest form, rock and roll, arose from multiple genres in the late 1940s, most importantly jump blues. It was first popularized by performers like Chuck Berry, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, and Elvis Presley, who fused the sound with country music, resulting in rockabilly. Rock soon became one of the most popular genres, with girl groups, garage rock and surf rock most popular in the US.
Starting the mid-1960s, a group of British bands inspired on American blues and R&B became popular on both sides of the Atlantic -- the British Invasion, a catchall term for multiple genres (including British blues, Mersey beat, and mod). These groups, including The Beatles, fused the earlier sounds with Appalachian folk music, forming folk rock, as well as a variety of less-popular genres, including the singer-songwriter tradition.
The British Invasion evolved into psychedelic rock, which in turn gave birth to jam bands and the classically-influenced progressive rock. Perhaps the most significant psychedelic rock band is the British Pink Floyd. Some British blues and mod bands like The Yardbirds and The Who evolved into hard rock. In the early 1970s appeared a more glamorous version of hard rock called glam rock, and a darker sound known as heavy metal. In the early to mid-1970s, singer-songwriters and pop musicians led the charts, as well as southern rock and roots rock performers, which fused modern techniques with a more traditionalist sound. The late 1970s saw the rise of punk rock (with bands like The Clash, The Ramones, and the Sex Pistols), notable for its rebellious attitude and "Do-it-yourself" philosophy.
In the 1980s, rock continued to evolve, with metal becoming popular and punk mutating into other forms. Punk yielded New Wave, post-punk, hardcore punk, and alternative rock, while metal developed into various subdivisions, including thrash metal, glam metal, death metal, and black metal. Alternative rock became more popular in the 1990s, with subgenres like Britpop, gothic rock, emo music, grunge, and shoegazing being some of the best-known. The newest development in the subgenres of rock is the recent emergence of Basement that was coined from the alternative London rock scene in the UK.
» Recommended rock artists