Hard rock
Hard rock or heavy rock is a heavier subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard rock music was produced by the Kinks, the Who, The Yardbirds, the Rolling Stones, Cream, Vanilla Fudge, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In the late 1960s, bands such as Blue Cheer, the Jeff Beck Group, Iron Butterfly, Led Zeppelin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Golden Earring, Steppenwolf, Grand Funk Railroad, Free, and Deep Purple also produced hard rock.
The genre developed into a major form of popular music in the 1970s, with the Who, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple being joined by Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, Kiss, Queen, AC/DC, Thin Lizzy and Van Halen. During the 1980s, some hard rock bands moved away from their hard rock roots and more towards pop rock. Established bands made a comeback in the mid-1980s and hard rock reached a commercial peak in the 1980s with glam metal bands such as Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi and Def Leppard as well as the rawer sounds of Guns N' Roses which followed with great success in the later part of that decade.
Hard rock began losing popularity with the commercial success of R&B, hip-hop, urban pop, grunge and later Britpop in the 1990s. Despite this, many post-grunge bands adopted a hard rock sound and the 2000s saw a renewed interest in established bands, attempts at a revival, and new hard rock bands. In the 2000s, only a few hard rock bands from the 1970s and 1980s managed to sustain highly successful recording careers.
Definitions
Hard rock is a form of loud, aggressive rock music. The electric guitar is often emphasised, used with distortion and other effects, both as a rhythm instrument using repetitive riffs with a varying degree of complexity, and as a solo lead instrument. Drumming characteristically focuses on driving rhythms, strong bass drum and a backbeat on snare, sometimes using cymbals for emphasis. The bass guitar works in conjunction with the drums, occasionally playing riffs, but usually providing a backing for the rhythm and lead guitars. Vocals are often growling, raspy, or involve screaming or wailing, sometimes in a high range, or even falsetto voice.In the late-1960s, the term heavy metal was used interchangeably with hard rock, but gradually began to be used to describe music played with even more volume and intensity. While hard rock maintained a bluesy rock and roll identity, including some swing in the back beat and riffs that tended to outline chord progressions in their hooks, heavy metal's riffs often functioned as stand-alone melodies and had no swing in them. In the 1980s, heavy metal developed a number of subgenres, often termed extreme metal, some of which were influenced by hardcore punk, and which further differentiated the two styles. Despite this differentiation, hard rock and heavy metal have coexisted with one another, with bands frequently flirting with the boundaries of, or hybridizing the genres.
History
The roots of hard rock can be traced back to the mid-to-late 1950s, particularly electric blues, which laid the foundations for key elements such as a rough declamatory vocal style, heavy guitar riffs, string-bending blues-scale guitar solos, strong beat, thick riff-laden texture, and posturing performances. Electric blues guitarists began experimenting with hard rock elements such as driving rhythms, distorted guitar solos and power chords in the 1950s, evident in the work of Memphis blues guitarists such as Joe Hill Louis, Willie Johnson, and particularly Pat Hare, who captured a "grittier, nastier, more ferocious electric guitar sound" on records such as James Cotton's "Cotton Crop Blues". Other antecedents include Link Wray's instrumental "Rumble" in 1958, and the surf rock instrumentals of Dick Dale, such as "Let's Go Trippin' and "Misirlou".Origins (1960s)
In the 1960s, American and British blues and rock bands began to modify rock and roll by adding harder sounds, heavier guitar riffs, bombastic drumming, and louder vocals, from electric blues. Early forms of hard rock can be heard in the work of Chicago blues musicians Elmore James, Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf, the Kingsmen's version of "Louie Louie" which made it a garage rock standard, and songs of R&B-influenced British Invasion acts, such as "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks, "My Generation" by the Who and " Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones. Soft rock was often derived from folk rock, using acoustic instruments and putting more emphasis on melody and harmonies. In contrast, hard rock was most often derived from blues rock and was played louder and with more intensity.Blues rock acts that pioneered the sound included Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and the Jeff Beck Group. Cream, in songs like "I Feel Free", combined blues rock with pop and psychedelia, particularly in the riffs and guitar solos of Eric Clapton. Cream's best known-song, "Sunshine of Your Love", is sometimes considered to be the culmination of the British adaptation of blues into rock and a direct precursor of Led Zeppelin's style of hard rock and heavy metal. Jimi Hendrix produced a form of blues-influenced psychedelic rock, which combined elements of jazz, blues and rock and roll. From 1967, Jeff Beck brought lead guitar to new heights of technical virtuosity and moved blues rock in the direction of heavy rock with his band, the Jeff Beck Group. Dave Davies of the Kinks, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Pete Townshend of the Who, Hendrix, Clapton and Beck all pioneered the use of new guitar effects like phasing, feedback and distortion. The Doors' debut album, released in 1967, included songs like "Soul Kitchen", "Twentieth Century Fox", and a cover version of "Back Door Man", which were what music journalist Stephen Davis characterized as "enough hard rock tracks". One track that stands out as especially heavy for its time is the last 1:10 of "I Feel Much Better" by the Small Faces, recorded in May 1967. The first 2:46 is typical psychedelic fare of the time, but then the song suddenly changes into a hard bass-and-guitar power chord with Steve Marriott's rhythm guitar and gut bucket singing, equal to the heaviest rock to be heard later. The Beatles began producing songs in the new hard rock style beginning with their 1968 double album The Beatles and, with the track "Helter Skelter", attempted to create a greater level of noise than the Who. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic has referred to the "proto-metal roar" of "Helter Skelter", while Ian MacDonald called it "ridiculous, with McCartney shrieking weedily against a massively tape-echoed backdrop of out-of-tune thrashing".
File:LedZeppelinChicago75.jpg|thumb|left|250px|Led Zeppelin live at Chicago Stadium, January 1975
Groups that emerged from the American psychedelic scene about the same time included Iron Butterfly, MC5, Blue Cheer and Vanilla Fudge. San Francisco band Blue Cheer released a crude and distorted cover of Eddie Cochran's classic "Summertime Blues", from their 1968 debut album Vincebus Eruptum, that outlined much of the later hard rock and heavy metal sound. The same month, Steppenwolf released its self-titled debut album, including "Born to Be Wild", which contained the first lyrical reference to heavy metal and helped popularise the style when it was used in the film Easy Rider. Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, with its 17-minute-long title track, using organs and with a lengthy drum solo, also prefigured later elements of the sound.
By the end of the decade a distinct genre of hard rock was emerging with bands like Led Zeppelin, who mixed the music of early rock bands with a more hard-edged form of blues rock and acid rock on their first two albums Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin II, and Deep Purple, who began as a progressive rock group in 1968 but achieved their commercial breakthrough with their fourth and distinctively heavier album, Deep Purple in Rock. Also significant was Black Sabbath's Paranoid, which combined guitar riffs with dissonance and more explicit references to the occult and elements of Gothic horror. All three of these bands have been seen as pivotal in the development of heavy metal, but where metal further accentuated the intensity of the music, with bands like Judas Priest following Sabbath's lead into territory that was often "darker and more menacing", hard rock tended to continue to remain the more exuberant, good-time music.
Expansion (1970s)
In the early 1970s the Rolling Stones further developed their hard rock sound with Exile on Main St.. Initially receiving mixed reviews, according to critic Steve Erlewine it is now "generally regarded as the Rolling Stones' finest album". They continued to pursue the riff-heavy sound on albums including It's Only Rock 'n' Roll and Black and Blue. Led Zeppelin began to mix elements of world and folk music into their hard rock from Led Zeppelin III and Led Zeppelin IV. The latter included the track "Stairway to Heaven", which would become the most played song in the history of album-oriented radio. Deep Purple continued to define their unique brand of hard rock, particularly with their album Machine Head, which included the tracks "Highway Star" and "Smoke on the Water". In 1975 guitarist Ritchie Blackmore left, going on to form Rainbow and after the break-up of the band the next year, vocalist David Coverdale formed Whitesnake. 1970 saw the Who release Live at Leeds, often seen as the archetypal hard rock live album, and the following year they released their highly acclaimed album Who's Next, which mixed heavy rock with extensive use of synthesizers. Subsequent albums, including Quadrophenia, built on this sound before Who Are You, their last album before the death of pioneering rock drummer Keith Moon later that year.Emerging British acts included Free, who released their signature song "All Right Now", which has received extensive radio airplay in both the UK and US. After the breakup of the band in 1973, vocalist Paul Rodgers joined supergroup Bad Company, whose eponymous first album was an international hit. UK band Foghat also found success throughout the decade with their boogie and blues style. The mixture of hard rock and progressive rock, evident in the works of Deep Purple, was pursued more directly by bands like Uriah Heep and Argent. Scottish band Nazareth released their self-titled début album in 1971, producing a blend of hard rock and pop that would culminate in their best selling, Hair of the Dog, which contained the proto-power ballad "Love Hurts". Having enjoyed some national success in the early 1970s, Queen, after the release of Sheer Heart Attack and A Night at the Opera, gained international recognition with a sound that used layered vocals and guitars and mixed hard rock with heavy metal, progressive rock, and even opera. The latter featured the hit single "Bohemian Rhapsody".
In the United States, shock-rock pioneer Alice Cooper achieved mainstream success with School's Out, and followed up with Billion Dollar Babies, which reached the No. 1 position on the Billboard 200 albums chart in 1973. Also in 1973, blues rockers ZZ Top released their classic album Tres Hombres and Aerosmith produced their eponymous début, as did Southern rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd and proto-punk outfit New York Dolls, demonstrating the diverse directions being pursued in the genre. Montrose, including the instrumental talent of Ronnie Montrose and vocals of Sammy Hagar released their first album in 1973. Former bubblegum-pop family act the Osmonds recorded two hard rock albums in 1972 and had their breakthrough in the UK with the hard rock hit "Crazy Horses." Kiss built on the theatrics of Alice Cooper and the look of the New York Dolls to produce a unique band persona, achieving their commercial breakthrough with the double live album Alive! in 1975 and helping to take hard rock into the stadium rock era. In the mid-1970s Aerosmith achieved their commercial and artistic breakthrough with Toys in the Attic and Rocks, Blue Öyster Cult, formed in the late 1960s, picked up on some of the elements introduced by Black Sabbath with their breakthrough live gold album On Your Feet or on Your Knees, followed by their first platinum album, Agents of Fortune, containing the hit single " The Reaper". Journey released their eponymous debut in 1975 and the next year Boston released their highly successful début album. In the same year, hard rock bands featuring women saw commercial success as Heart released Dreamboat Annie and the Runaways débuted with their self-titled album. While Heart had a more folk-oriented hard rock sound, the Runaways leaned more towards a mix of punk-influenced music and hard rock. The Amboy Dukes, having emerged from the Detroit garage rock scene and most famous for their psychedelic hit "Journey to the Center of the Mind", were dissolved by their guitarist Ted Nugent, who embarked on a solo career that resulted in four successive multi-platinum albums between Ted Nugent and his best selling Double Live Gonzo!. "Goodbye to Love" by the Carpenters, a duo whose music was otherwise almost exclusively soft rock, drew hate mail for its incorporation of a hard rock fuzz guitar solo by Tony Peluso.
From outside the United Kingdom and the United States, the Canadian trio Rush released three distinctively hard rock albums in 1974–75 before moving toward a more progressive sound with the 1976 album 2112. Also from Canada, Triumph released their debut album in 1976 before their breakthrough came in the form of the Just a Game album in 1979. Later, the band's streak of popularity continued with the Allied Forces album in 1981. The Irish band Thin Lizzy, which had formed in the late 1960s, made their most substantial commercial breakthrough in 1976 with the hard rock album Jailbreak and their worldwide hit "The Boys Are Back in Town". Their style, consisting of two duelling guitarists often playing leads in harmony, proved itself to be a large influence on later bands. They reached their commercial, and arguably their artistic peak with Black Rose: A Rock Legend. The arrival of the Scorpions from Germany marked the geographical expansion of the subgenre. Australian-formed AC/DC, with a stripped back, riff heavy and abrasive style that also appealed to the punk generation, began to gain international attention from 1976, culminating in the release of their multi-platinum albums Let There Be Rock and Highway to Hell.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul,, pp. 3–5. Also influenced by a punk ethos were heavy metal bands like Motörhead, while Judas Priest abandoned the remaining elements of the blues in their music, further differentiating the hard rock and heavy metal styles and helping to create the new wave of British heavy metal which was pursued by bands like Iron Maiden, Saxon, and Venom.
With the rise of disco in the US and punk rock in the UK, hard rock's mainstream dominance was rivalled toward the later part of the decade. Disco appealed to a more diverse group of people and punk seemed to take over the rebellious role that hard rock once held. Early punk bands like the Ramones explicitly rebelled against the drum solos and extended guitar solos that characterised stadium rock, with almost all of their songs clocking in under three minutes with no guitar solos. However, new rock acts continued to emerge and record sales remained high into the 1980s. 1977 saw the début and rise to stardom of Foreigner, who went on to release several platinum albums through to the mid-1980s. Midwestern groups like Kansas, REO Speedwagon and Styx helped further cement heavy rock in the Midwest as a form of stadium rock. In 1978, Van Halen emerged from the Los Angeles music scene with a sound based around the skills of lead guitarist Eddie Van Halen. He popularised a guitar-playing technique of two-handed hammer-ons and pull-offs called tapping, showcased on the song "Eruption" from the album Van Halen, which was highly influential in re-establishing hard rock as a popular genre after the punk and disco explosion, while also redefining and elevating the role of electric guitar. In the 1970s and 80s, several European bands, including the German Michael Schenker Group, the Swedish band Europe, and Dutch bands Golden Earring, Vandenberg and Vengeance experienced success in Europe and internationally.