Punk rock (or simply punk) is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock. Punk bands typically use 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 recordings and distributed them through informal channels.
The term "punk" was first used in relation to rock music by some American critics in the early 1970s, to describe garage bands and their devotees. By late 1976, bands such as the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Damned in London, and Television, Patti Smith, and the Ramones in New York City were recognized as the vanguard of a new musical movement. The following year saw punk rock spreading around the world, and it became a major cultural phenomenon in the United Kingdom. For the most part, punk took root in local scenes that tended to reject association with the mainstream.Though originally more diverse and accepting, it evolved to create an “angry white male” punk stereotype with a “color blind” attitude. An associated punk subculture emerged, expressing youthful rebellion and characterized by distinctive styles of clothing and adornment (ranging from deliberately offensive T-shirts, leather jackets, spike bands and other studded or spiked jewelry to bondage and S&M clothes) and a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies.
By the beginning of the 1980s, faster, more aggressive styles such as hardcore (e.g. Black Flag) and Oi! (e.g. Cock Sparrer), as well as crossover thrash (e.g. Suicidal Tendencies), had become the predominant mode of punk rock. Musicians identifying with or inspired by punk also pursued a broad range of other variations, giving rise to post-punk and the alternative rock movement. At the end of the 20th century, punk rock had been adopted by the mainstream, as pop punk and punk rock bands such as Green Day, Rancid, Sublime, the Offspring and Blink-182 brought the genre widespread popularity.
Soul is a popular music genre that originated in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It combines elements of African-American gospel music, rhythm and blues and jazz. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening in the United States; where record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential in the civil rights era. Soul also became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa.
According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying". Catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps and extemporaneous body moves, are an important feature of soul music. Other characteristics are a call and response between the soloist and the chorus, and an especially tense vocal sound. The style also occasionally uses improvisational additions, twirls and auxiliary sounds.
Soul music dominated the U.S. R&B chart in the 1960s, and many recordings crossed over into the pop charts in the U.S., Britain and elsewhere. By 1968, the soul music genre had begun to splinter. Some soul artists developed funk music, while other singers developed slicker, more sophisticated, and in some cases more politically conscious varieties. By the early 1970s, soul music had been influenced by psychedelic rock and other genres. The United States saw the development of neo soul around 1994. There are also several other subgenres and offshoots of soul music.
The key subgenres of soul include the Detroit (Motown) style, a rhythmic music influenced by gospel; deep soul and southern soul, a driving, energetic soul style combining R&B with southern gospel music sounds; Memphis soul, a shimmering, sultry style; New Orleans soul, which came out of the rhythm and blues style; Chicago soul, a light gospel-influenced sound; Philadelphia soul, a lush orchestral sound with doo-wop-inspired vocals; Psychedelic soul, a blend of psychedelic rock and soul music; as well as categories such as Blue-eyed soul, music performed by white artists; British soul; and Northern soul, rare soul music played by DJs at nightclubs in Northern England.
Rock music is a genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the 1950s, and developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and later, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s' and 1950s' rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by blues, rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as electric blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources.
Musically, rock has centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature using a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.
By the late 1960s, referred to as the "golden age" or "classic rock" period, a number of distinct rock music subgenres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock, folk rock, country rock, raga rock, and jazz-rock fusion, many of which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock, which was influenced by the countercultural psychedelic scene. New genres that emerged from this scene included progressive rock, which extended the artistic elements; glam rock, which highlighted showmanship and visual style; and the diverse and enduring subgenre of heavy metal, which emphasized volume, power, and speed. In the second half of the 1970s, punk rock reacted against the perceived overblown, inauthentic and overly mainstream aspects of these genres to produce a stripped-down, energetic form of music valuing raw expression and often lyrically characterised by social and political critiques. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of other subgenres, including new wave, post-punk and eventually the alternative rock movement. From the 1990s alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop, and indie rock. Further fusion subgenres have since emerged, including pop punk, rap rock, and rap metal, as well as conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including the garage rock/post-punk and synthpop revivals at the beginning of the new millennium.
Rock music has also embodied and served as the vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major sub-cultures including mods and rockers in the UK and the hippie counterculture that spread out from San Francisco in the US in the 1960s. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of the protest song, rock music has been associated with political activism as well as changes in social attitudes to race, sex and drug use, and is often seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult consumerism and conformity.
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll or rock 'n' roll) is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of predominantly African-American genres such as blues, boogie woogie, jump blues, jazz, and gospel music, together with Western swing and country music. Though elements of rock and roll can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until the 1950s.
"Rock and roll" can refer either to the first wave of music that originated in the US in the 1950s prior to its development into "rock music", or more broadly to rock music and culture. For the purpose of differentiation, this article deals with the first definition.
In the earliest rock and roll styles of the late 1940s and early 1950s, either the piano or saxophone was often the lead instrument, but these were generally replaced or supplemented by guitar in the middle to late 1950s. The beat is essentially a blues rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, the latter almost always provided by a snare drum. Classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars (one lead, one rhythm), a string bass or (after the mid-1950s) an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit. Beyond simply a musical style, rock and roll, as seen in movies and on television, influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language. In addition, rock and roll may have contributed to the civil rights movement because both African-American and white American teens enjoyed the music. It went on to spawn various genres, often without the initially characteristic backbeat, that are now more commonly called simply "rock music" or "rock".
Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broad sense to refer to most types of popular Jamaican dance music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that was strongly influenced by traditional mento and calypso music, as well as American jazz and rhythm and blues, especially the New Orleans R&B practiced by Fats Domino and Allen Toussaint, and evolved out of the earlier genres ska and rocksteady.
Stylistically, reggae incorporates some of the musical elements of rhythm and blues, jazz, mento (a celebratory, rural folk form that served its largely rural audience as dance music and an alternative to the hymns and adapted chanteys of local church singing), calypso, African music, as well as other genres. One of the most easily recognizable elements is offbeat rhythms; staccato chords played by a guitar or piano (or both) on the offbeats of the measure. The tempo of reggae is usually slower than ska but faster than rocksteady. The concept of "call and response" can be found throughout reggae music.
The bass guitar often plays the dominant role in reggae. The bass sound in reggae is thick and heavy, and equalized so the upper frequencies are removed and the lower frequencies emphasized. The guitar in reggae usually plays on the off beat of the rhythm. It is common for reggae to be sung in Jamaican Patois, Jamaican English, and Iyaric dialects. Reggae is noted for its tradition of social criticism and religion in its lyrics, although many reggae songs discuss lighter, more personal subjects, such as love and socializing.
Reggae has spread to many countries across the world, often incorporating local instruments and fusing with other genres. Reggae en Español spread from mainland South American Caribbean from Venezuela and Guyana to the rest of South America. Caribbean music in the United Kingdom, including reggae, has been popular since the late 1960s, and has evolved into several subgenres and fusions. Many reggae artists began their careers in the UK, and there have been a number of European artists and bands drawing their inspiration directly from Jamaica and the Caribbean community in Europe. Reggae in Africa was boosted by the visit of Bob Marley to Zimbabwe in 1980.
Jazz fusion, fusion, or jazz rock is a musical genre that developed in the late 1960s from mixing funk and rhythm and blues rhythms with the electric instruments, amplified sound, electronic effects and playing styles of rock music together with jazz's complex time signatures (which were derived from non-Western music) and jazz's complex chord progressions and altered and extended chords. Fusion musicians typically create extended instrumental compositions based around a melody and a chord progression and lengthy solo improvisations. Fusion songs use brass instruments such as trumpet and saxophone as melody and soloing instruments. The rhythm section typically consists of electric bass (in some cases fretless), electric guitar, electric piano/synthesizer (in contrast to the double bass and piano used in earlier jazz) and drums. As with jazz forms that preceded fusion, all of the instruments–including the rhythm section instruments–are used as soloing instruments and all demonstrate a high level of instrumental technique.
The term "jazz-rock" is often used as a synonym for "jazz fusion" as well as for music performed by late 1960s and 1970s-era rock bands that added jazz elements to their music. It is different from the UK Canterbury Scene's progressive rock ("prog") and other forms of prog-jazz fusion, in which extended prog instrumentals use improvisation and take on a jazz-influenced feel. After a decade of popularity during the 1970s, fusion expanded its improvisatory and experimental approaches through the 1980s, in parallel with the development of a radio-friendly style called smooth jazz. Experimentation continued in the 1990s and 2000s. Fusion albums, even those that are made by the same group or artist, may include a variety of musical styles. Rather than being a codified musical style, fusion can be viewed as a musical tradition or approach.
Disco is a genre of dance music containing elements of funk, soul, pop, and salsa that was most popular in the mid to late 1970s, though it has had brief resurgences. Its initial audiences were club-goers from the gay, African American, Italian American, Latino, and psychedelic communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Disco also was a reaction against both the domination of rock music and the stigmatization of dance music by the counterculture during this period. Women embraced disco as well, and the music eventually expanded to several other marginalized communities of the time.
The disco sound has soaring vocals over a steady "four-on-the-floor" beat, an eighth note (quaver) or 16th note (semi-quaver) hi-hat pattern with an open hi-hat on the off-beat, and a prominent, syncopated electric bass line. In most disco tracks, strings, horns, electric pianos, and electric guitars create a lush background sound. Orchestral instruments such as the flute are often used for solo melodies, and lead guitar is less frequently used in disco than in rock. Many disco songs use electronic synthesizers.
Well-known 1970s disco performers included Donna Summer, the Bee Gees, Boney M, KC and the Sunshine Band, The Trammps, Gloria Gaynor and Chic. While performers and singers garnered some public attention, producers working behind the scenes played an important role. Many non-disco artists recorded disco songs at the height of disco's popularity, and films such as Saturday Night Fever and Thank God It's Friday contributed to disco's rise in mainstream popularity. Disco was the last mass popular music movement that was driven by the baby boom generation. Disco was a worldwide phenomenon, but its popularity drastically declined in the United States in 1979 and 1980, and disco was basically dead by 1981. Disco Demolition Night, an anti-disco protest held in Chicago on 12 July 1979, is commonly thought of as a factor to disco's fast and drastic decline.
By the late 1970s most major U.S. cities had thriving disco club scenes, with Studio 54 being a well-known example of a disco club. Popular dances included The Hustle, a sexually suggestive dance. Discotheque-goers often wore expensive and extravagant fashions. There was also a thriving drug subculture in the disco scene, particularly for drugs that would enhance the experience of dancing to the loud music and the flashing lights, such as cocaine.
Disco was a key influence on the 1980s dance music style called House. A disco revival was seen, first in 2005 with Madonna's album Confessions on a Dance Floor, and again in 2013, as disco-styled songs by artists like Daft Punk (with Nile Rodgers), Justin Timberlake, Breakbot, and Bruno Mars filled the pop charts in the UK and the US.
