Rock Styles
CLICK ON THE SQUARE PICTURE ICONS TO GO THROUGH TO A YOUTUBE PLAYLIST IN THAT STYLE
GARAGE REVIVAL. 2000s - 2010s.
Revival of the low-fi style of 1960s US Garage bands. so therefore quite proto-punky and anti-commercial.
POST-GRUNGE. 2000s - 2010s.
Bands influenced by the Seattle Grunge scene and sound, after Grunge proper imploded with the death of Kurt Cobain.
POST-BRITPOP. 2000s - 2010s.
Bands influenced by the BritPop scene and sound, after it was knocked off chart top spot by The Spice Girls
and then a new millenium happened. Many of these bands r from Thames Valley & Wales.
BRITPOP. Mid - late 1990s.
Coming out of the Madchester scene, & London alternative, a cheerfully upbeat collection of bands. Quite moddish
in style, directly influenced by The Beatles, The Kinks, The Who, etc. It was a deliberate response by the Brits to Grunge to put the focus back on the tune.
MADCHESTER SCENE.
1980s - early 90s.
Mixed rock, club and rave scene in Manchester especially around New Order ,A Guy Called Gerald etc, through the Hacienda nightclub.
GRUNGE. Mid 1980s - early 90s.
Seattle sound, with a pretty low mood (Nirvana, Smashking Pumpkins, etc). Most of their songs were a sort of extreme alienated form of alternative or indie.
ALTERNATIVE & INDIE. 1980s - current.
Just styles that are deliberately not mainstream, and often bringing out some kind of anxst in the lyrics, but sometimes it just means unusual styles or fashion sense.
GEEK ROCK. 1990s - 2000s.
Similar to the other rock genres around this time, another one focused on difficulties around misfitting in school.
ETHEREAL ROCK. 1980s.
One of many sedated sounding genres of alternative rock coming out of the artier ends of New Wave and post-punk in the 80s.
DREAM POP & SHOEGAZE. 1980s.
Shoegaze was a group of bands literally just looking at their shoes when performing. They were expected to do well as a trend in the 90s, but BritPop won that battle easily.
NEW WAVE. Very end 1970s - 1980s.
Emphasis on 80s synthesisers and vocal modulators and on more self-consciously arty or musical styles compared to punk.
POST-PUNK. 1980s.
As punk lost it's place in the mainstream, a few acts tried to redefine the style - which became post-punk. Much more consciously arty/musical than 70s acts & led to goth rock after.
2-TONE (BRITISH SKA). Late 70s - 1980s.
Bands, some with mixed black and white musicians, playing British rock to a ska beat. Associated to the tail end of Mod culture and some punks after the end of punk in the mainstream.
PUNK ROCK. Late 1970s - current.
Punk is a kind of smirk against all pretentious things. Partly as a reaction to Disco, and Glam Rock (below), punk kicked off on both sides of the atlantic around the same time, though 60s garage bands had already used some of the styles but it just hadn't swept so widely across the media as a "new young rebellion". The same way of singing is still used eg AudioBullys, Slaves.
GLAM ROCK. 1970s
This was pretty huge in the UK. So to all those dads out there growing up in the 70s and pretending to be ultra-sensible these days....we know the truth! ;-).
Bowie. T-Rex. Slade. Suzy Quattro. Roxy Music.
etc. Didn't catch on in US greatly except for Alice Cooper.
NU-METAL. 1990s - 2010s
Massive selling cross-over genre. It's Heavy Metal with Hip-Hop, Industrial Rock, even Funk. Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Slipknot, etc - very much a Halloween thing.
HEAVY METAL. 1970s -
Kicked off proper in Birmingham (Black Sabbath, Judas Priest
etc), focused on big glam/goth style performances, and intense guitar work, Van Halen style.
HARD ROCK for CLASSIC ROCK radioplay. 1970s - 80s.
Hard Rock has a give and take in styles with US Garage, Prog, and Heavy Metal. Classic rock just means a standardized format for radio plays. Commercial bands like AC/DC, Queen and Kiss, gave rise by the 80s to massive concert sets targeting to worldwide tours with a huge, sadium filling sounds.
SOUTHERN ROCK. 1960s -
The sound of Credence Clearwater Revival & Lyrnyrd Skynyrd etc, full bodied and lyrical rock sound, with a strong beat, & heavier than either rockabilly or country and western.
BLUES ROCK. 1960s -
Amped up and more aggressive or hazy Blues tracks over a rock band base, borrowing the singing style of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and others, and the guitar styles from Electric blues.
FOLK ROCK. 1960s - .
Most familiar 2day from acts like Mamas & Papas. It's ones of the classic sounds of the 60s Summer of Love (along with Surf Rock, psychedelia , etc).
ENGLISH FOLK ROCK. 1960s - .
Still going 2 today with festivals like Fairport Convention, folk besides folk rock has become quite mainstream with Ed Sheeran, Florence + The Machine, etc. Folk is based on the earliest known songs from these islands.
PROG ROCK. 1960s - .
Progressive rock aims for much longer tracks, with a concept or a story, so wasn't very radio friendly, but Mike Oldfield
scored a huge success for Virgin Records with Tubular Bells
(1973)
PSYCHEDELIC ROCK. 1960s - .
60s was the first decade with very widespread mixing of many drugs for purely enjoyment purposes. So that kicked off a lot of the surreal art, music, comedy, film & writing styles of the decades after.
BAROQUE ROCK. 1960s - 2010s.
Like Lana Del Rey and others today, 60s bands experimented with extra instruments including instruments like harpsichords coming from the Baroque period in music (1600 - 1750 ish).
SURF ROCK. 1960s.
Known today as the soundtrack to much of Tarentino's films, it was the main rock sound in 1960s California.
UK MERSEY BEAT. 1960s.
Mersey beat just means banging out a steady 4 time every bar. It kicked off in Liverpool (The Beatles, Gerry & the Pacemakers, etc). Had a massive impact on Pop and Rock as it was much easier for song writers to work with compared to more boogie
style 1950s rock n roll rhythm.
US GARAGE BANDS. 1960s.
Just self starter bands, & often thats in a garage. Kinda forgotten due to The British invasion
and
psychedeliaand surf rock. Now looked back on as a pretty important style as set the tone for punk
long before punk.
ROCKABILLY. 1950s - 60s.
Early offshoot of Rock n Roll mixing with the Appalacian folk, and Western, vocal styles and topics like drink, prison, family life, work troubles. Rockabilly leads pretty naturally into Country and Western.
ROCK n ROLL ORIGINS. 1940s - 50s.
Rock n Roll came out of Swing era jazz, electric blues, and jump blues. here's some of the artists who kicked it all off.