Hard rock or heavy rock is a heavier subgenre of rock music. It is characterized by loud and rough vocals and electric guitars compared to traditional rock music. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic, and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard rock music was created by bands such as the Kinks, the Who, the Yardbirds, the Rolling Stones, Cream, Vanilla Fudge, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In the late 1960s, other bands like Blue Cheer, the Jeff Beck Group, Iron Butterfly, Led Zeppelin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Golden Earring, Steppenwolf, Grand Funk Railroad, Free, and Deep Purple also made hard rock music.
The genre became a major type of popular music in the 1970s. Bands such as the Who, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple were joined by Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, Kiss, Queen, AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, and Van Halen. During the 1980s, some hard rock bands started to change their style and focus more on pop rock. Established bands returned to popularity in the mid-1980s, and hard rock reached a time when it was very popular. Glam metal bands like Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, and Poison, along with the more intense sound of Guns N' Roses, helped make hard rock a top-selling music style in the 1980s.
Hard rock began losing popularity with the rise of R&B, hip-hop, urban pop, grunge, and later Britpop in the 1990s. Despite this, many post-grunge bands used a hard rock sound. In the 2000s, there was renewed interest in older hard rock bands, and some new bands formed. However, only a few hard rock bands from the 1970s and 1980s kept having successful music careers.
Definitions
Hard rock is a type of loud and intense rock music. The electric guitar is often the main instrument, played with special effects like distortion. It is used to create repeating musical phrases (called riffs) that can be simple or complex, and it also plays solo parts. Drumming in hard rock focuses on strong, driving rhythms, with heavy use of the bass drum and a steady beat on the snare drum. Cymbals are sometimes used to add emphasis. The bass guitar works with the drums, sometimes playing riffs but mostly supporting the rhythm and lead guitars. Singing in hard rock is often rough, raspy, or includes screaming, wailing, or high-pitched sounds like falsetto.
In the late 1960s, the term "heavy metal" was used the same way as "hard rock." Over time, it came to describe music that was even louder and more intense. While hard rock kept its roots in blues and rock and roll, with a rhythmic feel in the beat and riffs that often followed musical patterns, heavy metal's riffs were more like standalone melodies and lacked that rhythmic feel. In the 1980s, heavy metal developed many different types, some influenced by hardcore punk. These changes helped make hard rock and heavy metal distinct. Even so, the two styles have often been used together, with bands blending or mixing their sounds.
History
The roots of hard rock began in the mid-to-late 1950s, especially in electric blues music. This style introduced key features such as loud and clear singing, heavy guitar sounds, fast guitar solos using the blues scale, strong beats, thick and heavy guitar textures, and energetic performances. Electric blues guitarists started using hard rock elements like powerful rhythms, distorted guitar solos, and power chords in the 1950s. Memphis blues guitarists like Joe Hill Louis, Willie Johnson, and Pat Hare helped create a more intense and powerful electric guitar sound. This can be heard in songs like James Cotton's "Cotton Crop Blues" (1954). Other early influences include Link Wray's song "Rumble" (1958) and Dick Dale's surf rock songs like "Let's Go Trippin'" (1961) and "Misirlou" (1962).
In the 1960s, American and British blues and rock bands began changing rock and roll by adding louder sounds, heavier guitar riffs, strong drumming, and louder vocals. Early hard rock can be heard in the music of Chicago blues musicians like Elmore James, Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf. The Kingsmen's version of "Louie Louie" (1963) became a garage rock standard. Songs by R&B-influenced British Invasion bands, such as "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks (1964), "My Generation" by the Who (1965), and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones (1965), also showed early hard rock styles. Soft rock often came from folk rock, using acoustic instruments and focusing more on melody and harmony. In contrast, hard rock came from blues rock and was played louder and with more energy.
Blues rock bands that helped shape hard rock include Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and the Jeff Beck Group. Cream combined blues rock with pop and psychedelic styles in songs like "I Feel Free" (1966), especially in the guitar work of Eric Clapton. Their song "Sunshine of Your Love" (1967) is often seen as a major step in blending blues into rock and a direct influence on Led Zeppelin's hard rock and heavy metal style. Jimi Hendrix created a type of psychedelic rock influenced by blues, jazz, and rock and roll. Jeff Beck, with his band the Jeff Beck Group, pushed lead guitar to new levels of skill and moved blues rock toward heavy rock. Guitarists like Dave Davies of the Kinks, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Pete Townshend of the Who, Hendrix, Clapton, and Beck helped popularize new guitar effects like phasing, feedback, and distortion. The Doors' first album (1967) included songs like "Soul Kitchen" and "Back Door Man," which were described as hard rock tracks. A part of "I Feel Much Better" by the Small Faces (1967) features a heavy bass-and-guitar power chord that was unusually intense for its time. The Beatles began using hard rock styles in their 1968 album The Beatles (the "White Album") and in the track "Helter Skelter," which some critics called a "proto-metal roar."
Other groups from the American psychedelic scene included Iron Butterfly, MC5, Blue Cheer, and Vanilla Fudge. Blue Cheer released a rough and distorted version of "Summertime Blues" (1968), which showed early hard rock and heavy metal sounds. The same year, Steppenwolf's song "Born to Be Wild" introduced the term "heavy metal" and helped popularize the style. Iron Butterfly's album In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968) had a long, 17-minute title track with heavy organ sounds and a long drum solo, which influenced later hard rock and heavy metal.
By the late 1960s, a clear hard rock genre was forming. Bands like Led Zeppelin mixed early rock sounds with blues rock and acid rock on their first two albums (Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin II, both 1969). Deep Purple, who started as a progressive rock band in 1968, became famous with their heavier album Deep Purple in Rock (1970). Black Sabbath's Paranoid (1970) combined heavy guitar riffs with dissonant sounds and themes of the occult and Gothic horror. These bands were important in the development of heavy metal, but hard rock remained more energetic and fun compared to the darker, more intense style of metal.
In the early 1970s, the Rolling Stones developed their hard rock sound on the album Exile on Main St. (1972), which is now considered one of their best. They continued with albums like It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (1974) and Black and Blue (1976). Led Zeppelin added world and folk music influences to their hard rock starting with Led Zeppelin III (1970) and Led Zeppelin IV (1971), which included the famous song "Stairway to Heaven." Deep Purple's Machine Head (1972) had songs like "Highway Star" and "Smoke on the Water." In 1975, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple to form Rainbow, and vocalist David Coverdale later formed Whitesnake. The Who released the live album Live at Leeds (1970) and the album Who's Next (1971), which mixed heavy rock with synthesizers.
British bands like Free released the song "All Right Now" (1970), which became popular in the UK and US. After Free disbanded in 1973, their singer Paul Rodgers joined Bad Company, whose first album (1974) was a global hit. UK band Foghat also had success with their bluesy style. Bands like Uriah Heep and Argent blended hard rock with progressive rock. Scottish band Nazareth released their self-titled debut album in 1971, mixing hard rock with