Rock and Roll: A History of the Music

A comprehensive guide to the history of rock and roll music, from its roots in blues and country to its evolution into the sound we know today.

Origins of rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s from musical styles such as gospel, jump blues, jazz, boogie woogie, rhythm and blues, and country music. While elements of rock and roll can be traced back to the blues, boogie woogie, and country music of the late 19th century, its direct roots are in the rhythm and blues music that emerged out of New Orleans in the 1920s.

In 1951, Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed began playing this music style while popularizing the phrase “rock and roll” to describe it. Although there were other attempts to coin the term “rock and roll” before Freed’s usage, his was the one that caught on. The popularity of rock and roll was initially expressed through danceable songs with a backbeat rhythms produced by drummers such as Earl Palmer and Clyde McPhatter, electric guitar work by guitarists such as Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, amplified bass lines courtesy of Fats Domino and Bill Haley & His Comets’ bassist Marshall Lytle, as well as saxophone or harp-led instrumentals by Little Richard’s band The Jives or Bill Doggett’s “Honky Tonk.”

The Beatles and the British Invasion

In the early 1960s, British rock bands began to achieve mainstream success in the United States. This became known as the “British Invasion.” The Beatles were at the forefront of this movement and became one of the most popular bands of all time.

The Beatles formed in Liverpool, England in 1960. The members were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. The band quickly became popular in Britain and released their first album, Please Please Me, in 1963.

In 1964, the Beatles came to America and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. They played to a record-breaking audience of 73 million viewers. The Beatles became a sensation and their albums topped the charts. They went on to release hits such as “Help!” and ” Yesterday.”

The Beatles were not only popular for their music but also for their style and haircuts. They sparked a fashion trend known as “Beatlemania.” Young people all over the world copied their hairstyles and clothing.

The British Invasion continued with other bands such as The Rolling Stones and The Who becoming popular in America. These bands brought a new sound to rock and roll that influenced generations of musicians.

The Rolling Stones and American rock

After the Beatles became successful in America in early 1964, they inspired a number of American rock bands to form. One of these was the Rolling Stones, who were soon being hailed as “the World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band.” The Stones’ music was harder-edged than the Beatles’ and they were more inclined to sing about controversial topics such as drugs and sex.

Like the Beatles, the Stones enjoyed a long and successful career. They continue to tour and release new music, more than 50 years after they first came on the scene.

Psychedelic rock

Psychedelic rock, also called psychedelia, is a style of popular music that originated in the mid-1960s. Its primary characteristic is a preoccupation with atmosphere, texture and extended improvisation as listeners were encouraged to explore their own inner realities. The style often used distorted electric guitars, drums, bass guitars, and keyboards along with psychedelic effects and studios techniques such as reverb, phase shifting and echo.

Glam rock

Glam rock was a brief but highly influential music movement that emerged in the early 1970s and had a profound impact on popular culture. Glam rock artists rejected the traditional values of rock music and instead celebrated hedonism and excess. They were often flamboyantly dressed in outrageous costumes and wearing heavy makeup. Glam rock was highly stylized and theatrical, and it was strongly associated with the rise of the queer rights movement.

The movement was largely centered in the United Kingdom, but it also had a significant presence in Continental Europe and North America. Glam rock began to decline in popularity in the late 1970s, but its influence can still be felt in many aspects of popular culture today.

Punk rock

Punk rock is a genre of rock music that emerged in the mid-1970s. Punk rock was developed as a reaction to the perceived excesses and pretensions of mainstream music in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Punk bands typically produced short or fast-paced songs, with hard-edged melodies and singing styles, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY ethic; many bands self-produced their recordings and distributed them through informal channels.

New wave

New wave is a subgenre of rock music popular in the late 1970s and the 1980s with ties to mid-1970s punk rock. New wave moved away from traditional blues and rock and roll sounds to create pop music that incorporated electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco, and synthesizer[1] sounds. Initially new wave was similar to punk rock, before becoming more influenced by electronic music and pop.

The phrase “new wave” was first used in a 1977 BBC radio program[2] about rock, called Rock Goes to College. It was meant to describe music being made by young bands who were influenced by the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, as well as 60s garage bands. In October 1977, after seeing the Sex Pistols play at the Roundhouse in London,[3] critic Nick Kent used the term new wave in his review of Damned’s debut album Damned Damned Damned in NME.[4][5] In his second review for NME of Television’s Marquee Moon album (also released in 1977), Kent again used the term new wave.[6]

In January 1978, Tony Stewart wrote a cover story for Sounds magazine titled “Punk/New Wave”.[7][8] He used the term to describe era-specific bands such as Patti Smith Group, Blondie, Television, Talking Heads, Ramones and Richard Hell & The Voidoids. By 1979 pennants bearing the phrase “new wave” were becoming common at concert venues throughout England;[9][10][11] soon various British youth subcultures began adopting it as an alternative label for themselves. In 1980 NME’s Steve Bush used “new wave” as a synonym for “punk” on several occasions.[12][13][14][15]By 1981 strains of new wave were beginning to appear in United States nerd culture with slogan buttons reading “NOWave”, amidst a flood of cassette tapes traded amongst fans of 80s underground music styles including post-punk played on college radio stations like WPRB Princeton Radio,[16] neo-psychedelic bands such as Devo,[17 ] B-52’s,[18 ] Talking Heads[19 ], Mission Of Burma,[20 ] Pere Ubu[21

Heavy metal

Heavy metal is a genre of music that typically features distorted guitars, thundering drums, and screaming vocals. It developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a harder, heavier revision of rock music. Hard rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath helped pave the way for metal, while British groups like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden took the genre to new heights in the 1980s.

Metal has since gone through many incarnations, with subgenres like death metal, thrash metal, and black metalEach subgenre has its own distinctive sound and style, but all share a common love of loud, hard-hitting music.

Alternative rock

Alternative rock is a genre of rock music that emerged from the underground music scene in the 1980s and became mainstream in the 1990s. Alternative rock is a broad umbrella term consisting of music that differs greatly in terms of its sound, its social context, and its regional roots. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produced and was initially used interchangeably with alternative music. As grunge and punk revival bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Foo Fighters broke into the mainstream in the early 1990s, alternative rock entered the musical mainstream and many alternative bands became highly successful.

Grunge

Grunge music first appeared in the early 1990s, and is often considered a subgenre of alternative rock. Grunge music is characterized by its heavy, distorted guitars and angry, aggressive lyrics. The genre became very popular in the early 1990s, with bands such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam achieving mainstream success. Grunge music declined in popularity in the late 1990s, but has remained a significant force in alternative rock music.