Hard rock

From Free net encyclopedia

(Redirected from Hard Rock)

Hard Rock redirects here. For the restaurant, please see Hard Rock Cafe.

Template:HardRockBox Hard rock is a form of rock and roll music which finds its closest roots in early 1960s garage rock and in Jimi Hendrix's psychedelic rock. It is typified by a heavy use of distorted electric guitar, bass guitar and drums. The term "hard rock" is often used as an umbrella term for genres such as punk, grunge, industrial rock and heavy metal, in order to distinguish them from softer, more radio friendly pop rock music.

1 Characteristics
2 Hard Rock or Heavy Metal?
3 History
4 See also

[edit]

Characteristics

Hard rock is a variation of rock and roll and is strongly influenced by blues music; in fact, the most frequently used scale in hard rock is the pentatonic, which is a typical blues scale. However, unlike traditional rock and roll, which takes elements of the "old" blues, hard rock borrows elements of the so-called British blues, a style of blues played with more modern instruments such as electric guitars, drums and electric bass.

The term hard rock is often applied to many styles of rock, their only common feature being that they deviate from pop rock, though this is generally incorrect. Two such examples are punk rock and grunge. Punk rock uses a faster tempo and fewer riffs (also known as power chords). Grunge can be classified as being much more extreme than hard rock.

The predominant instrument in hard rock is the electric guitar. Virtuoso guitarists are very prevalent in hard rock, examples of which include Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple and Rainbow, and Eddie Van Halen of Van Halen. Drums are also a basis of hard rock because they sustain the rhythm of the music, and create an energetic drive that keeps the music flowing.

[edit]

Hard Rock or Heavy Metal?

The birth of the heavy metal genre has created a controversial topic that appears when discussing 1970s-1980s hard rock groups such as AC/DC, Black Sabbath, KISS and Van Halen. The oft-asked question is: are they hard rock groups or heavy metal groups?

To answer, it is necessary to know the major differences between hard rock and heavy metal:

1 - Generally (though not always) hard rock uses the major pentatonic scale for building songs, and so hard rock melodies and harmonies are more "positive" than heavy metal, which uses mostly the minor pentatonic scale or the minor harmonic scale. It should be pointed out that in this case, "heavy metal" refers to the early, classic heavy metal (the numerous other subgenres of heavy metal are so different from the classic one that it is impossible to put them together).

2 - Hard rock lyrics are usually (though again, not always) about love or personal experiences: they are generally "positive" lyrics. For example Black Sabbath's lyrics (which are often considered typical heavy metal) are much "darker" and "negative" than AC/DC's (which are considered typically hard rock). Though regardless, this isn't always true. Some metal groups such as Iron Maiden or Judas Priest tend to write fantasy-based lyrics, which are not "dark" in the same way at all; in particular, the fantasy-based subgenre called Power metal is very optimistic, both musically and with regard to the lyrics.

3 - Metal groups frequently have a different fashion from hard rock groups.

It is not so easy to classify groups such as the ones quoted previously. For this reason, some think that the two terms hard rock and heavy metal can be interchangeably talking about those groups.

[edit]

History

[edit]

Early days (1960s)

One of the major influences in hard rock is undoubtedly Blues music, especially that brand of blues that met rock and roll in the 1960s: it is often called British blues, because this meeting happened in United Kingdom.

Image:LedZeppelinLedZeppelinalbumcover.jpgBritish rockers like The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The Who and The Kinks modified rock and roll adding to the standard genre harder sounds, heavy guitar riffs, often bombastic drumming and harder vocals: they created the basis for hard rock. Even The Beatles, known for sweet sounds, love songs and quiet atmospheres, published a primordial hard rock album called The White Album.

At the same time, guitarist Jimi Hendrix produced a particular kind of blues known as Psychedelic rock, which combined elements of jazz, blues and rock and roll creating a unique genre. Also, he was one of the first guitarists to experiment new guitar effects like phasing, feedback and distortion. Another important group in the Blues-rock is Cream (especially the guitarist, Eric Clapton).

Hard rock came into existence when British groups of late 1960s like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin mixed the music of early British rockers with a particular kind of Blues-rock, typified by an aggressive approach to the blues. Led Zeppelin's first eponymous album, released in 1969, is a good example of heavy blues-rock which represents the true beginning of the hard rock genre.

Also Deep Purple showed up in the hard rock scene with the albums Shades of Deep Purple, The Book of Taliesyn, Deep Purple. Together with Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple are considered the true "masters" of hard rock.

[edit]

The First Era (1970s)

Image:Machine Head album cover.jpgIn the 1970s, hard rock finally got a true identity. Led Zeppelin's third album, Led Zeppelin III was more progressive rock-oriented than the second, but the heavy connotations of their music still remained. So, they received several critics from detractors of hard rock, who considered it a senseless music. Anyway, this didn't stop the expansion of hard rock: young boys liked it a lot, seeing it as a form of rebellion against the fair and quiet music of their fathers.

In 1970 another important group from UK, Black Sabbath, published what is considered the first heavy metal album, titled Paranoid. Black Sabbath's music was revolutionary even in hard rock: it was typified by the darkest lyrics ever written, hard riffs and a heavy atmosphere. Black Sabbath transformed the current hard rock in an heavier genre, creating a primordial kind of heavy metal.

In 1972 Deep Purple published their most famous album titled Machine Head which contains their most famous song, "Smoke On The Water".

Machine Head continued Deep Purple's transformation of hard rock, and it's considered along with Paranoid one of the first proto-metal albums. In particular, the song "Highway Star" is considered the first Speed Metal song in the history (Speed Metal is the progenitor of the more extreme Thrash Metal). Anyway, Deep Purple's music is very different from Black Sabbath's, so Deep Purple are still considered an hard rock group, not a metal group.

From 1973, hard rock evolved to another stadium. New artists such Queen, KISS and Aerosmith introduced heavier elements in the genre, which from this point on lost the blues influences to become more heavy metal-oriented. Aerosmith and Queen published their respective eponymous debut albums, which shown perfectly the new evolution of hard rock. Even Led Zeppelin with the album Houses of the Holy took this direction.

Differently from the past, from this moment on every group created his own style: Aerosmith, Queen and KISS moved on a style that will evolve in 1980s to the so-called Glam Rock, one of the most popular rock subgenres; on the contrary, the proto-metal frontier, formed by Judas Priest, Rainbow and Van Halen, took a more "alternative" direction.

Image:HighwayHellCover.jpgJudas Priest introduced a new element in the genre, the dual rhythm, which is the fact that two guitarists instead of one play the rhythmic riffs: this element will become common in heavy metal. Judas Priest is one of the major influences of Thrash Metal and Power Metal. Rainbow, formed by the former guitarist of Deep Purple, Ritchie Blackmore, created the basis for power metal together with Judas Priest, especially thanks to Ritchie Blackmore's great technique. Meanwhile, Black Sabbath took off the darkness of the beginning with albums such as Technical Ecstasy, following the heavy metal direction of Judas Priest and Rainbow.

Another important group in the hard rock scene showed up in 1978, it's Van Halen. Van Halen's music, differently from KISS, Aerosmith and Queen, was based mostly on the guitar skills of Eddie Van Halen, the lead guitarist. In the album Van Halen there's a massively influential song, "Eruption", which demonstrates all the technique Eddie owns.

In 1979, the differences between the classical hard rock movement and the rising heavy metal movement got truly highlighted. The australian band AC/DC, after 3 australian only albums, published their first international album titled Highway to Hell: despite the current heavy metal direction, AC/DC's music is based mostly on the rhythm & blues and the early 1970s hard rock. On the other side, the British band Motörhead, with the album Overkill put on the basis for the rise of Thrash Metal.

The year closed with Ozzy Osbourne's firing from Black Sabbath due to his alcohol and drugs problems. Ronnie James Dio, vocalist of Rainbow, came to replace him.

[edit]

The Second Era (1980s)

Image:BackBlackCover.jpgIn the 1980s a new wave of rockers pushed the envelope of the old frontier. Heavy metal got a separate identity from hard rock.

In 1980 Led Zeppelin disbanded because of the tragic death of drummer John Bonham after a binge of heavy drinking. With their disbanding, the first wave of "classic" rockers ends. Also the lead singer of AC/DC, Bon Scott died in the same way of John Bonham. Anyways, AC/DC still remained on the scene, and published the album Back in Black, which is the second biggest selling album of all time: this album is probably the most influcencial one of the 1980s for later rockers. By selling so much, AC/DC proved to the public that hard rock could sell and made possible the rise of a radio-friendly hard rock and heavy metal. Van Halen too released successuful albums such as Van Halen II and Women and Children First, which opened the road for what will later become Glam Metal.

On the other side, Iron Maiden, Diamond Head, Angel Witch, Motörhead and Ozzy Osbourne on solo started the official heavy metal. Iron Maiden and Angel Witch's music took great influences from Black Sabbath's album Paranoid: dark sounds, heavy riffs and dark lyrics. Anyway, their style featured also fantasy-based elements, which differences them from Black Sabbath's classic metal: together with Judas Priest, they are considered the main representers of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

In 1981 the American band Mötley Crüe released a massively influential album called Too Fast For Love, which set the basis for the rising genre Glam Metal. A year later the genre exploded, especially thanks to Twisted Sister and Quiet Riot: Twisted Sister's Under The Blade is considered one of the best Classic metal albums, and Quiet Riot's Metal Health is the first album ever which reached #1 in the Billboard United States chart.On the other side of the ocean, Iron Maiden's The Number of the Beast reached #1 in United Kingdom charts.

Image:Mötley Crüe Shout at the Devil.jpgIn 1983 Mötley Crüe released their most famous album, Shout at the Devil, which became a huge hit at once, and it's for this reason often called "The Breakthrough Metal album". Def Leppard showed up in the scene with the album Pyromania, which reached #2 in american charts: their music are something different from both classic hard rock and classic metal, that mixes glam rock, heavy metal, classic rock and Album Oriented Rock.

1984 was a key year. KISS returned on the scene unmasked with the album Animalize: with their unmasking, they officially entered in the glam metal movement. Van Halen's album 1984 became a huge success, hitting #2 on Billboard album charts; in particular, the song "Jump" hit #1 in the single chart and is considered one of the most popular rock songs ever written. Judas Priest's Defenders of the Faith achieved RIAA Gold and Platinum certifications. Other important acts in 1984's glam scene are Ratt and W.A.S.P..

At the same time, another style got born. Yngwie J. Malmsteen and Steve Vai, two virtuoso guitarists, released their respective debut albums Rising Force and Flex-Able. Their unique style doesn't feat vocals, because it's all about their advanced guitar skills: it's the Instrumental Rock. There are differences between Yngwie and Steve: while Malmsteen's music is greatly influcenced by classical music, Vai prefers the pure hard rock.

Image:Def Leppard - Hysteria.jpgMeanwhile, the thrash metal frontier was about to become more "extreme" than ever: in 1985 Slayer's album Hell Awaits, which precedes their famous Reign in Blood, put on the basis for the rise of death metal. Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth and Metallica are often called the Big Four of Thrash. In the same year Aerosmith returned on the scene with the album Done With Mirrors.

It's in 1986 that hard rock really went mainstream. The Swedish band Europe released The Final Countdown, maybe the most popular and radio-friendly album together with Van Halen's 1984. In particular, the title track "The Final Countdown" became a huge success, hitting number 1 in 26 countries. On the thrash side, Metallica and Megadeth released two landmark albums, Master of Puppets and Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?, which are the most notable alternative to the mainstream. In the same year the virtuoso guitarist Joe Satriani, teacher and great friend of Steve Vai, released his first full album, Not of This Earth. The true success for him arrived a year later, with the release of Surfing with the Alien, a miliarstone in the history of Instrumental Rock.

1987 was a key year. The most notable successes in the charts are Appetite For Destruction by Guns N' Roses, Hysteria by Def Leppard, which hit #1 in Billboard album chart, and Mötley Crüe's Girls, Girls, Girls

[edit]

The Decline (1990s)

(to be finished...)

[edit]

Hard rock

From Free net encyclopedia

Contents

Characteristics

Hard Rock or Heavy Metal?

History

Early days (1960s)

The First Era (1970s)

The Second Era (1980s)

The Decline (1990s)

See also

Views

Personal tools

Search

Partner sites