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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 rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the genres of blues, rhythm and blues, and 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, heavy metal, which emphasized an aggressive thick sound, 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...)

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The following are images from various rock music-related articles on Wikipedia.

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

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Pearl Jam is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. The band's lineup consists of founding members Jeff Ament (bass guitar), Stone Gossard (rhythm guitar), Mike McCready (lead guitar), and Eddie Vedder (lead vocals, guitar), as well as Matt Cameron (drums), who joined in 1998. Keyboardist Boom Gaspar has also been a touring/session member with the band since 2002. Former members include Dave Krusen (an original member), Matt Chamberlain, Dave Abbruzzese, and Jack Irons, all of whom were the band's drummers from 1990 to 1998. Pearl Jam has outsold and outlasted many of its contemporaries from the early 1990s, and is considered one of the most influential bands from that decade, dubbed "the most popular American rock and roll band of the '90s".

Formed after the demise of Gossard and Ament's previous bands, Green River and Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam broke into the mainstream with their debut album, Ten, in 1991. Ten stayed on the Billboard 200 chart for nearly five years, and has gone on to become one of the highest-selling rock records ever, going 13× Platinum in the United States. Released in 1993, Pearl Jam's second album, Vs., sold over 950,000 copies in its first week of release, setting the record for most copies of an album sold in its first week of release at the time. Their third album, Vitalogy (1994), became the second-fastest-selling CD in history at the time, with more than 877,000 units sold in its first week.

One of the key bands in the grunge movement of the early 1990s, Pearl Jam's members often shunned popular music industry practices such as making music videos or participating in interviews. The band had also sued Ticketmaster, claiming it had monopolized the concert-ticket market. In 2006, Rolling Stone described the band as having "spent much of the past decade deliberately tearing apart their own fame".

Pearl Jam had sold more than 85 million albums worldwide by 2018, including nearly 32 million albums in the United States by 2012, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. Pearl Jam was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 in its first year of eligibility. They were ranked eighth in a readers' poll by Rolling Stone magazine in its "Top Ten Live Acts of All Time" issue. Throughout its career, the band has also promoted wider social and political issues, such as abortion rights sentiments and opposition to George W. Bush's presidency. Vedder acts as the band's spokesman on these issues. (Full article...)

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Promotional photograph of Elvis Presley, taken in 1954.

Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), known mononymously as Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Known as the "King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Presley's energized performances and interpretations of songs, and sexually provocative dance moves, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines during a transformative era in race relations, brought both great success and initial controversy.

Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi; his family relocated to Memphis, Tennessee, when he was 13. His music career began there in 1954, at Sun Records with producer Sam Phillips, who wanted to bring the sound of African-American music to a wider audience. Presley, on guitar and accompanied by lead guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, was a pioneer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country music and rhythm and blues. In 1955, drummer D. J. Fontana joined to complete the lineup of Presley's classic quartet and RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who managed him for the rest of his career. Presley's first RCA Victor single, "Heartbreak Hotel", was released in January 1956 and became a number-one hit in the US. Within a year, RCA Victor would sell ten million Presley singles. With a series of successful television appearances and chart-topping records, Presley became the leading figure of the newly popular rock and roll; though his performative style and promotion of the then-marginalized sound of African Americans led to him being widely considered a threat to the moral well-being of white American youth.

In November 1956, Presley made his film debut in Love Me Tender. Drafted into military service in 1958, he relaunched his recording career two years later with some of his most commercially successful work. Presley held few concerts, however, and guided by Parker, proceeded to devote much of the 1960s to making Hollywood films and soundtrack albums, most of them critically derided. Some of Presley's most famous films included Jailhouse Rock (1957), Blue Hawaii (1961), and Viva Las Vegas (1964). In 1968, he returned to the stage in the acclaimed NBC television comeback special Elvis, which led to an extended Las Vegas concert residency and a string of highly profitable tours. In 1973, Presley gave the first concert by a solo artist to be broadcast around the world, Aloha from Hawaii. However, years of prescription drug abuse and unhealthy eating severely compromised his health, and Presley died unexpectedly in August 1977 at his Graceland estate at the age of 42.

Presley is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with sales estimated around 500 million records worldwide. He was commercially successful in many genres, including pop, country, rockabilly, rhythm and blues, adult contemporary, and gospel. He won three Grammy Awards, received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, and has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame. He holds several records, including the most RIAA-certified gold and platinum albums, the most albums charted on the Billboard 200, the most number-one albums by a solo artist on the UK Albums Chart, and the most number-one singles by any act on the UK Singles Chart. In 2018, Presley was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. (Full article...)

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Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights is the third studio album by Finnish gothic rock band HIM, released 27 August 2001. The album was produced by Kevin Shirley, T. T. Oksala and HIM. The record had a troubled production, which lasted approximately eleven months. The prolonged recording process was partially due outside influences within the music industry hoping to repeat the success of HIM's previous album. As a result, Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights features a sleeker and more pop-oriented sound. It is the first HIM album to feature keyboardist Janne "Burton" Puurtinen.

Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights received mixed reviews from music critics. While some gave praise to the songwriting and Ville Valo's vocal performance, most were highly critical of the production and overall commercial sound. Despite this, Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights charted in seven countries, peaking at number one in Finland and Austria. It would later go platinum and gold, respectively. Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights was also the band's first album to chart on the Billboard 200. Three singles were released, all of which reached the top two spots on the Finnish Singles Chart. The supporting tour for Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights saw HIM playing in the US for the first time, but overall strained the band to the point of nearly breaking up. (Full article...)

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"(Don't Fear) The Reaper" is a song by American rock band Blue Öyster Cult from the 1976 album Agents of Fortune. The song, written and sung by lead guitarist Donald "Buck Dharma" Roeser, deals with eternal love and the inevitability of death. Dharma wrote the song while picturing an early death for himself.

Released as an edited single (omitting the slow building interlude in the original), the song is Blue Öyster Cult's highest chart success, reaching #7 in Cash Box and #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1976. Critical reception was positive and in December 2003 "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" was listed at number 405 on Rolling Stone's list of the top 500 songs of all time. (Full article...)

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Credit: Rowland Scherman

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan at a civil rights march on Washington, D.C., 28 August 1963.

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Did you know (auto-generated)

... 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 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 when rock musician Warren Zevon received a terminal diagnosis of lung cancer, he learned to "enjoy every sandwich"?
... that Rolling Stone listed Ácido Argentino as the most essential album of Argentine heavy metal?
... that heavy metal band Judas Priest took their name from Bob Dylan's song "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest"?

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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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