A Guide to Hard Rock: Brief History of Hard Rock

Hard rock music is a subgenre of rock and roll that features soaring vocals, loud, rhythmic electric guitar, strong drums, and bass guitar. The music style is typically performed by a rock band composed of lead and rhythm guitarists, a bassist, drummer, and a lead singer or frontman with a powerful or commanding voice (though one of the musicians may serve as the lead vocalist). Some hard rock bands, like Dream Theater and Deep Purple, feature a keyboard player.

Repetitive, rhythmic, distorted, blues-based riffs and guitar solos anchor hard rock songs. The subgenre may also deploy feedback to lend a “hard” or “heavy” feel to the music. Hard rock songs are meant to be energizing and hinge on upbeat, with themes like freedom, partying, beautiful partners, sex, and the singer’s appreciation of all four.

Like many rock subgenres, hard rock has its roots in American blues. Here is a brief overview of the musical style:

• Beginnings. The history of hard rock music begins with American blues and, in particular, the amplified, assertive electric guitar work by performers like Elmore James and Hubert Sumlin. The blues strongly influenced the British Invasion bands of the mid-1960s; songs like “You Really Got Me,” by the Kinks, or “My Generation,” by the Who, added louder, heavier guitar riffs and vocals to the blues template. Later, psychedelic rock performers like Jimi Hendrix and “heavy rock” groups like Blue Cheer lent feedback, distortion, and longer guitar solos to the blues-rock sound. Even the Beatles explored hard rock on songs like “Revolution.”
• Foundation of the sound. For many critics and fans alike, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin laid the foundation of hard rock with the release of their debut albums in 1969 and 1970, respectively. All three wielded enormous sonic power in harder-edged riffs, but the similarities between the acts largely ended there. Zeppelin and Deep Purple were pure hard rock acts that swung on blues riffs and rhythm, while Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi and singer Ozzy Osbourne took on darker, heavier, and more distorted tones. Sabbath would provide a conduit to the first wave of heavy metal through English groups, like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, and German acts, like Scorpions and Accept. Zeppelin and Deep Purple’s sound would be adopted by a host of various rock subgroups, including progressive rock acts like Argent, glam bands like the New York Dolls, and shock rockers like KISS and Alice Cooper.
• The dawn of arena rock. Epic-scaled rock, made for arena audiences by Queen, the Who, and Boston, defined hard rock in the 1970s, though the subgenre continued to nurture offshoots: bands like AC/DC, Aerosmith, and Thin Lizzy hewed to the blues roots, while others drifted towards metal, like Motorhead. Los Angeles’ innovative Van Halen offered a blend of pop, R&B, metal, and hard rock, which influenced the ‘80s metal scene and its wild mix of MTV-friendly “hair metal” (Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Whitesnake) and harder-edged groups like Quiet Riot and Guns N’ Roses.
• Dominating the mainstream. Hard rock’s dominance was undone in the 1990s by the meteoric rise of speed and thrash metal groups like Metallica, pop-punk, and grunge acts like Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains. But established hard rock bands like Aerosmith continued to flourish and, by the 2000s, were joined by a new breed of hard rockers. Again, it was a broadly diverse crew that counted alternative acts like Foo Fighters, arena-style rock from Creed, garage sounds from the Black Keys and White Stripes, and even retro-rock like England’s The Darkness.

The term “hard rock” is often used to describe any form of loud, guitar-based rock, including heavy metal, punk, and grunge, but there are key differences between each subgenre.

Hard rock bands typically use lead guitar mixed with a strong rhythm line or “swing,” while metal bands use a heavier guitar sound, more intense rhythm, and darker themes in their songs. Songs like “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones and “Paranoid,” the title track from Black Sabbath’s second album, highlights the difference between the subgenres.

Hardcore and pop-punk are faster and feature fewer guitar riffs and guitar solos than hard rock, while grunge fuses the heaviness of metal with the raw fire of punk. However, some bands, like Aerosmith, the White Stripes, and the Darkness, straddle a middle line between subgenres.

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