The roots of hard rock can be traced back to the mid-to-late 1950s, particularly
electric blues, which laid the foundations for key elements such as a rough declamatory vocal style, heavy guitar riffs,
string-bending blues-scale
guitar solos, strong
beat, thick riff-laden
texture, and posturing performances. Electric blues
guitarists began experimenting with hard rock elements such as driving rhythms, distorted guitar solos and
power chords in the 1950s, evident in the work of
Memphis blues guitarists such as
Joe Hill Louis,
Willie Johnson, and particularly
Pat Hare, Other antecedents include
Link Wray's instrumental "
Rumble" in 1958, and the
surf rock instrumentals of
Dick Dale, such as "
Let's Go Trippin' (1961) and "
Misirlou" (1962).
Origins (1960s) ,
Bruce and
Clapton of
Cream, whose blues rock improvisation was a major factor in the development of the genre In the 1960s, American and
British blues and rock bands began to modify
rock and roll by adding harder sounds, heavier guitar riffs, bombastic drumming, and louder vocals, from
electric blues.
the Kingsmen's version of "
Louie Louie" (1963) which made it a
garage rock standard, and songs of
R&B-influenced
British Invasion acts, such as "
You Really Got Me" by
the Kinks (1964), "
My Generation" by
the Who (1965)
Soft rock was often derived from
folk rock, using acoustic instruments and putting more emphasis on melody and harmonies. In contrast, hard rock was most often derived from
blues rock and was played louder and with more intensity. Cream's best known-song, "
Sunshine of Your Love" (1967), is sometimes considered to be the culmination of the British adaptation of blues into rock and a direct precursor of Led Zeppelin's style of hard rock and heavy metal. Jimi Hendrix produced a form of blues-influenced psychedelic rock, which combined elements of
jazz, blues and rock and roll. From 1967,
Jeff Beck brought lead guitar to new heights of technical virtuosity and moved blues rock in the direction of heavy rock with his band, the Jeff Beck Group.
Dave Davies of the Kinks,
Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones,
Pete Townshend of the Who, Hendrix, Clapton and Beck all pioneered the use of new guitar effects like
phasing,
feedback and
distortion.
The Doors'
debut album, released in 1967, included songs like "
Soul Kitchen", "Twentieth Century Fox", and a cover version of "
Back Door Man", which were what music journalist
Stephen Davis characterized as "enough hard rock tracks". One track that stands out as especially heavy for its time is the last 1:10 of "
I Feel Much Better" by the
Small Faces, recorded in May 1967. The first 2:46 is typical psychedelic fare of the time, but then the song suddenly changes into a hard bass-and-guitar power chord with
Steve Marriott's rhythm guitar and gut bucket singing, equal to the heaviest rock to be heard later.
The Beatles began producing songs in the new hard rock style beginning with their 1968 double album
The Beatles (also known as the "White Album") and, with the track "
Helter Skelter", attempted to create a greater level of noise than the Who. while
Ian MacDonald called it "ridiculous, with
McCartney shrieking weedily against a massively tape-echoed backdrop of out-of-tune thrashing". live at
Chicago Stadium, January 1975 Groups that emerged from the American psychedelic scene about the same time included
Iron Butterfly,
MC5,
Blue Cheer and
Vanilla Fudge. San Francisco band Blue Cheer released a crude and distorted cover of
Eddie Cochran's classic "
Summertime Blues", from their 1968 debut album
Vincebus Eruptum, that outlined much of the later hard rock and heavy metal sound. (1972). Initially receiving mixed reviews, according to critic Steve Erlewine it is now "generally regarded as the Rolling Stones' finest album". They continued to pursue the riff-heavy sound on albums including ''
It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (1974) and Black and Blue (1976). Led Zeppelin began to mix elements of world and folk music into their hard rock from Led Zeppelin III (1970) and Led Zeppelin IV (1971). The latter included the track "Stairway to Heaven", which would become the most played song in the history of album-oriented radio. Deep Purple continued to define their unique brand of hard rock, particularly with their album Machine Head (1972), which included the tracks "Highway Star" and "Smoke on the Water". In 1975 guitarist Ritchie Blackmore left, going on to form Rainbow and after the break-up of the band the next year, vocalist David Coverdale formed Whitesnake. 1970 saw the Who release Live at Leeds, often seen as the archetypal hard rock live album, and the following year they released their highly acclaimed album Who's Next, which mixed heavy rock with extensive use of synthesizers. Subsequent albums, including Quadrophenia (1973), built on this sound before Who Are You'' (1978), their last album before the death of pioneering rock drummer
Keith Moon later that year. Emerging British acts included
Free, who released their signature song "
All Right Now" (1970), which has received extensive radio airplay in both the UK and US. After the breakup of the band in 1973, vocalist
Paul Rodgers joined
supergroup Bad Company, whose
eponymous first album (1974) was an international hit. UK band
Foghat also found success throughout the decade with their boogie and blues style. The mixture of hard rock and progressive rock, evident in the works of Deep Purple, was pursued more directly by bands like
Uriah Heep and
Argent. Scottish band
Nazareth released their
self-titled début album in 1971, producing a blend of hard rock and pop that would culminate in their best selling,
Hair of the Dog (1975), which contained the proto-
power ballad "
Love Hurts". Having enjoyed some national success in the early 1970s,
Queen, after the release of
Sheer Heart Attack (1974) and
A Night at the Opera (1975), gained international recognition with a sound that used layered vocals and guitars and mixed hard rock with heavy metal, progressive rock, and even
opera. The latter featured the hit single "
Bohemian Rhapsody". on stage in Boston in 2004 In the United States,
shock-rock pioneer
Alice Cooper achieved mainstream success with ''
School's Out (1972), and followed up with Billion Dollar Babies, which reached the No. 1 position on the Billboard 200
albums chart in 1973. Also in 1973, blues rockers ZZ Top released their classic album Tres Hombres and Aerosmith produced their eponymous début, as did Southern rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd and proto-punk outfit New York Dolls, demonstrating the diverse directions being pursued in the genre. Montrose, including the instrumental talent of Ronnie Montrose and vocals of Sammy Hagar released their first album in 1973. Former bubblegum-pop family act the Osmonds recorded two hard rock albums in 1972 and had their breakthrough in the UK with the hard rock hit "Crazy Horses." Kiss built on the theatrics of Alice Cooper and the look of the New York Dolls to produce a unique band persona, achieving their commercial breakthrough with the double live album Alive! in 1975 and helping to take hard rock into the stadium rock era. (1975) and Rocks (1976), Blue Öyster Cult, formed in the late 1960s, picked up on some of the elements introduced by Black Sabbath with their breakthrough live gold album On Your Feet or on Your Knees (1975), followed by their first platinum album, Agents of Fortune'' (1976), containing the hit single "
(Don't Fear) The Reaper".
Journey released their
eponymous debut in 1975 and the next year
Boston released their highly successful
début album. In the same year, hard rock bands featuring women saw commercial success as
Heart released
Dreamboat Annie and
the Runaways débuted with their
self-titled album. While Heart had a more
folk-oriented hard rock sound, the Runaways leaned more towards a mix of
punk-influenced music and hard rock.
The Amboy Dukes, having emerged from the Detroit garage rock scene and most famous for their psychedelic hit "Journey to the Center of the Mind" (1968), were dissolved by their guitarist
Ted Nugent, who embarked on a solo career that resulted in four successive multi-platinum albums between
Ted Nugent (1975) and his best selling
Double Live Gonzo! (1978). "
Goodbye to Love" by
the Carpenters, a duo whose music was otherwise almost exclusively soft rock, drew
hate mail for its incorporation of a hard rock
fuzz guitar solo by
Tony Peluso. on stage in Milan, Italy, 2004 From outside the United Kingdom and the United States, the Canadian trio
Rush released three distinctively hard rock albums in 1974–75 (
Rush,
Fly by Night and
Caress of Steel) before moving toward a more progressive sound with the 1976 album
2112. Also from Canada,
Triumph released their
debut album in 1976 before their breakthrough came in the form of the
Just a Game album in 1979. Later, the band's streak of popularity continued with the
Allied Forces album in 1981. The Irish band
Thin Lizzy, which had formed in the late 1960s, made their most substantial commercial breakthrough in 1976 with the hard rock album
Jailbreak and their worldwide hit "
The Boys Are Back in Town". Their style, consisting of two duelling guitarists often playing leads in harmony, proved itself to be a large influence on later bands. They reached their commercial, and arguably their artistic peak with
Black Rose: A Rock Legend (1979). The arrival of the
Scorpions from Germany marked the geographical expansion of the subgenre. Also influenced by a punk ethos were heavy metal bands like
Motörhead, while Judas Priest abandoned the remaining elements of the blues in their music, further differentiating the hard rock and heavy metal styles and helping to create the
new wave of British heavy metal which was pursued by bands like
Iron Maiden,
Saxon, and
Venom. receives a gold record in 1970. With the rise of
disco in the US and
punk rock in the UK, hard rock's mainstream dominance was rivalled toward the later part of the decade. Disco appealed to a more diverse group of people and punk seemed to take over the rebellious role that hard rock once held. Early punk bands like the
Ramones explicitly rebelled against the drum solos and extended guitar solos that characterised stadium rock, with almost all of their songs clocking in under three minutes with no guitar solos. However, new rock acts continued to emerge and record sales remained high into the 1980s. 1977 saw the début and rise to stardom of
Foreigner, who went on to release several platinum albums through to the mid-1980s.
Midwestern groups like
Kansas,
REO Speedwagon and
Styx helped further cement heavy rock in the Midwest as a form of stadium rock. In 1978,
Van Halen emerged from the Los Angeles music scene with a sound based around the skills of lead guitarist
Eddie Van Halen. He popularised a guitar-playing technique of two-handed hammer-ons and pull-offs called
tapping, showcased on the song "
Eruption" from the album
Van Halen, which was highly influential in re-establishing hard rock as a popular genre after the punk and disco explosion, while also redefining and elevating the role of electric guitar. In the 1970s and 80s, several European bands, including the German
Michael Schenker Group, the Swedish band
Europe, and Dutch bands
Golden Earring,
Vandenberg and
Vengeance experienced success in Europe and internationally.
Glam metal era (1980s) The opening years of the 1980s saw a number of changes in personnel and direction of established hard rock acts, including the deaths of
Bon Scott, the lead singer of AC/DC, and
John Bonham, drummer with Led Zeppelin. Whereas Zeppelin broke up almost immediately afterwards, AC/DC pressed on, recording the album
Back in Black (1980) with their new lead singer,
Brian Johnson. It became the fifth-highest-selling album of all time in the US and the second-highest-selling album in the world. Black Sabbath had split with original singer
Ozzy Osbourne in 1979 and replaced him with
Ronnie James Dio, formerly of Rainbow, giving the band a new sound and a period of creativity and popularity beginning with
Heaven and Hell (1980). Osbourne embarked on a solo career with
Blizzard of Ozz (1980), featuring American guitarist
Randy Rhoads. Some bands, such as
Queen, moved away from their hard rock roots and more towards
pop rock,
Kiss moved away from their hard rock roots toward pop metal: firstly removing their makeup in 1983 for their
Lick It Up album, and then adopting the visual and sound of glam metal for their 1984 release,
Animalize, both of which marked a return to commercial success.
Pat Benatar was one of the first women to achieve commercial success in hard rock, releasing four consecutive US Top Five albums between 1980 and 1983. Often categorised with the new wave of British heavy metal, in 1981
Def Leppard released their second album ''
High 'n' Dry, mixing glam-rock with heavy metal, and helping to define the sound of hard rock for the decade. The follow-up Pyromania'' (1983) was a big hit and the singles "
Photograph", "
Rock of Ages" and "
Foolin'", helped by the emergence of
MTV, were successful.
White Lion,
Twisted Sister and
Quiet Riot. Quiet Riot's album
Metal Health (1983) was the first glam metal album, and arguably the first heavy metal album of any kind, to reach number one in the
Billboard music charts and helped open the doors for mainstream success by subsequent bands. , seen here in 2008, were among the most successful acts of the 1980s glam metal era. Established bands made something of a comeback in the mid-1980s. After an 8-year separation, Deep Purple returned with the classic
Machine Head line-up to produce
Perfect Strangers (1984) which was a platinum-seller in the US and reached the top ten in nine other countries. After somewhat slower sales of its fourth album,
Fair Warning,
Van Halen rebounded with
Diver Down in 1982, then reached their commercial pinnacle with
1984.
Heart, after floundering during the first half of the decade, made a comeback with their eponymous ninth studio album which contained four hit singles. The new medium of video channels was used with considerable success by bands formed in previous decades. Among the first were ZZ Top, who mixed hard-edged blues rock with
new wave music to produce a series of highly successful singles, beginning with "
Gimme All Your Lovin'" (1983), which helped their albums
Eliminator (1983) and
Afterburner (1985) achieve diamond and multi-platinum status respectively. Others found renewed success in the singles charts with power ballads, including REO Speedwagon with "
Keep on Loving You" (1980) and "
Can't Fight This Feeling" (1984), Journey with "
Don't Stop Believin" (1981) and "
Open Arms" (1982),
Scorpions' "
Still Loving You" (1984), Heart's "
What About Love" (1985) and
Boston's "
Amanda" (1986).
Bon Jovi's third album,
Slippery When Wet (1986), mixed hard rock with a pop sensitivity selling 15 million copies in the US while becoming the first hard rock album to spawn three hit singles. The album has been credited with widening the audiences for the genre, particularly by appealing to women as well as the traditional male dominated audience, and opening the door to MTV and commercial success for other bands at the end of the decade. The anthemic
The Final Countdown (1986) by Swedish group
Europe was an international hit. This era also saw more glam-infused American hard rock bands come to the forefront, with both
Poison and
Cinderella releasing their multi-platinum début albums in 1986.
Van Halen released
5150 (1986), their first album with Sammy Hagar on lead vocals, which sold over 6 million copies. in 2006 Established acts benefited from the new commercial climate, with
Whitesnake's
self-titled album (1987) selling over 17 million copies, outperforming anything in Coverdale's or Deep Purple's catalogue before or since. It featured the rock anthem "
Here I Go Again '87" as one of 4 UK top 20 singles. The follow-up
Slip of the Tongue (1989) went platinum, but according to critics Steve Erlewine and Greg Prato, "it was a considerable disappointment after the across-the-board success of
Whitesnake". Aerosmith's comeback album
Permanent Vacation (1987) would begin a decade long revival of their popularity.
Crazy Nights (1987) by Kiss was the band's biggest hit album since 1979 and the highest of their career in the UK. Mötley Crüe with
Girls, Girls, Girls (1987) continued their commercial success and Def Leppard with
Hysteria (1987) hit their commercial peak, the latter producing six hit singles (a record for a hard rock act). Some of the glam rock bands that formed in the mid-1980s, such as White Lion and Cinderella experienced their biggest success during this period with their respective albums
Pride (1987) and
Long Cold Winter (1988) both going multi-platinum and launching a series of hit singles.
OU812 (1988) by
Van Halen, A final wave of glam rock bands arrived in the late 1980s, and experienced success with multi-platinum albums and hit singles from 1989 until the early 1990s, among them
Extreme,
Warrant Slaughter and
FireHouse.
Skid Row also released their
eponymous début (1989), but they were to be one of the last major bands that emerged in the glam rock era.
Grunge and Britpop (1990s) Hard rock entered the 1990s as one of the dominant forms of commercial music. The multi-platinum releases of AC/DC's
The Razors Edge (1990), Guns N' Roses'
Use Your Illusion I and
Use Your Illusion II (both in 1991), and Van Halen's
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (1991) showcased this popularity. In 1992, Def Leppard followed up 1987's
Hysteria with
Adrenalize, which went multi-platinum, spawned four Top 40 singles and held the number one spot on the US album chart for five weeks. were at the forefront of the 1990s
grunge era. While these few hard rock bands managed to maintain success and popularity in the early part of the decade,
alternative forms of hard rock achieved mainstream success in the form of
grunge in the US and
Britpop in the UK. This was particularly evident after the success of
Nirvana's
Nevermind (1991), which combined elements of
hardcore punk and heavy metal into a "dirty" sound that made use of heavy guitar distortion, fuzz and feedback, along with darker lyrical themes than their "hair band" predecessors.
Alice in Chains,
Mother Love Bone and
Soundgarden, were more strongly influenced by 1970s and 1980s rock and metal, while
Stone Temple Pilots managed to turn alternative rock into a form of stadium rock. However, all grunge bands shunned the macho, anthemic and fashion-focused aesthetics particularly associated with glam metal. By 1996, the band enjoyed remarkable vogue throughout much of the world, but were commercially unsuccessful in the U.S. Other bands such as Mötley Crüe Slash and McKagan eventually rejoined the band in 2016 and went on the
Not in this Lifetime... Tour with them. performing an acoustic show in 2007 Some established acts continued to enjoy commercial success, such as Aerosmith, with their number one multi-platinum albums:
Get a Grip (1993), which produced four hit singles and became the band's best-selling album worldwide (going on to sell over 10 million copies), and
Nine Lives (1997). In 1998, Aerosmith released the hit "
I Don't Want to Miss a Thing". Bon Jovi appealed to their hard rock audience with songs such as "
Keep the Faith" (1992), but also achieved success in
adult contemporary radio, with the hit ballads "
Bed of Roses" (1993) and "
Always" (1994). spawning four hit singles in the UK. Metallica's
Load (1996) and
ReLoad (1997) each sold in excess of 4 million copies in the US and saw the band develop a more melodic and blues rock sound. As the initial impetus of grunge bands faltered in the middle years of the decade,
post-grunge bands emerged. They emulated the attitudes and music of grunge, particularly thick, distorted guitars, but with a more radio-friendly commercially oriented sound that drew more directly on traditional hard rock. Among the most successful acts were the
Foo Fighters,
Candlebox,
Live,
Collective Soul, Australia's
Silverchair and England's
Bush, who all cemented post-grunge as one of the most commercially viable subgenres by the late 1990s.
Survivals and revivals (2000s) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on April 15, 2007 A few hard rock bands from the 1970s and 1980s managed to sustain highly successful recording careers. Bon Jovi were still able to achieve a commercial hit with "
It's My Life" from their double platinum-certified album
Crush (2000). becoming the first female-led hard rock band to earn Top 10 albums spanning five decades. There were reunions and subsequent tours from Van Halen (with Hagar in 2004 and then Roth in 2007), the Who (delayed in 2002 by the death of bassist
John Entwistle until 2006) and Black Sabbath (with Osbourne 1997–2006 and Dio 2006–2010) and even a one-off performance by Led Zeppelin (2007), renewing the interest in previous eras. Additionally, hard rock supergroups, such as
Audioslave (with former members of
Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden) and
Velvet Revolver (with former members of Guns N' Roses, punk band
Wasted Youth and Stone Temple Pilots singer
Scott Weiland), emerged and experienced some success. However, these bands were short-lived, ending in 2007 and 2008, respectively. The long-awaited Guns N' Roses album
Chinese Democracy was finally released in 2008, but only went platinum and failed to come close to the success of the band's late 1980s and early 1990s material. More successfully, AC/DC released the double platinum-certified
Black Ice (2008). Wolfmother's
self-titled 2005 debut album combined elements of the sounds of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin. Fellow Australians
Airbourne's début album ''
Runnin' Wild'' (2007) followed in the hard riffing tradition of AC/DC. England's
the Darkness'
Permission to Land (2003), described as an "eerily realistic simulation of '80s metal and '70s glam", went quintuple platinum in the UK. The follow-up,
One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005) was also a hit, but the band broke up in 2006, becoming active again in 2011. Los Angeles band
Steel Panther managed to gain a following by sending up 80s glam metal. A more serious attempt to revive glam metal was made by bands of the sleaze metal movement in Sweden, including
Vains of Jenna,
Hardcore Superstar and
Crashdïet. The Swedish rock band
Ghost is among the most successful recent hard-rock bands, being nominated 4 times for the
Grammy Awards, winning 1 award in the
Best Metal Performance category for the song
Cirice. Although Foo Fighters continued to be one of the most successful rock acts, with albums like
In Your Honor (2005), many of the first wave of post-grunge bands began to fade in popularity. Acts like
Creed,
Staind,
Puddle of Mudd and
Nickelback took the genre into the 2000s with considerable commercial success, abandoning most of the angst and anger of the original movement for more conventional anthems, narratives and romantic songs. They were followed in this vein by new acts including
Shinedown and
Seether. Acts with more conventional hard rock sounds included
Andrew W.K.,
Beautiful Creatures and
Buckcherry, whose breakthrough album
15 (2006) went platinum and spawned the single "
Sorry" (2007). These were joined by bands with hard rock leanings that emerged in the mid-2000s from the
garage rock,
Southern Rock, or
post punk revival, including
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and
Kings of Leon, and
Queens of the Stone Age from the US,
Three Days Grace from Canada,
Jet from Australia and
The Datsuns from New Zealand. In 2009
Them Crooked Vultures, a supergroup that brought together Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl, Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme and Led Zeppelin bass player
John Paul Jones attracted attention as a live act and released a
self-titled debut album that was a hit in the US and UK. ==See also==