180-512: Wild Beasts were an English indie rock band, formed in 2002 in Kendal . They released their first single, "Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants", on Bad Sneakers Records in November 2006, and subsequently signed to Domino Records . They have released five acclaimed albums, Limbo, Panto in 2008, Two Dancers in 2009, Smother in 2011, Present Tense in 2014 and Boy King in 2016. Two Dancers
360-709: A reverb heavy, pop –influenced sound. Marked by the Clean's 1981 debut single "Tally-Ho!" and 1982's Dunedin Double EP featuring the Chills , Sneaky Feelings , the Verlaines and the Stones , its guitars were often jangly and droning and vocals indistinct. The following years, the Dunedin sound spread to other New Zealand cities such as Christchurch or Auckland . The decade then saw
540-595: A 2009 article for the Guardian , journalist Peter Robinson cited the landfill indie movement as dead, blaming the Wombats , Scouting For Girls , and Joe Lean & the Jing Jang Jong by stating "If landfill indie had been a game of Buckaroo , those three sent the whole donkey's arse of radio-friendly mainstream guitar band monotony flying high into the air, legs flailing." There continued to be commercial successes in
720-600: A Life (2017) winning the Mercury Prize in 2018 and third album Blue Weekend (2021) being nominated. Writer Martin Young stated in a 2021 article for Dork that "It's impossible to truly state just how important Wolf Alice are. They are the catalyst for almost all the amazing bands you've read about in Dork over the last 5 years." Rock music Rock is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll " in
900-509: A certain degree doesn't care if it's popular. — Bill Wyman in Vulture (2016) The sound of rock is traditionally centered on the amplified electric guitar, which emerged in its modern form in the 1950s with the popularity of rock and roll. It was also greatly influenced by the sounds of electric blues guitarists. The sound of an electric guitar in rock music is typically supported by an electric bass guitar, which pioneered jazz music in
1080-597: A deal with Bad Sneakers Records in August 2006. They recorded a live session of three tracks in November 2006 for Marc Riley 's Brain Surgery on BBC Radio 6 Music . Bad Sneakers released "Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants" on 20 November. With Hayden's "enormous falsetto voice, which soars over chiming guitars", the single was placed at number 17 in the UK indie chart. In February 2007, Wild Beasts signed to Domino Records . A second single
1260-536: A descriptor in its own right, describing not only the bands on the tape but also bands who it influenced, often used alongside terms like "anorak pop" and "shambling". Some C86 bands found significant commercial success: the Soup Dragons went on to sell out Madison Square Garden ; Primal Scream were critically acclaimed, receiving the first ever Mercury Prize in 1992; the Wedding Present charted eighteen times in
1440-514: A fondness for a good beat, a meaningful lyric with some wit, and the theme of youth, which holds an "eternal attraction" so objective "that all youth music partakes of sociology and the field report ." Writing in Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s (1990), he said this sensibility is evident in the music of folk singer-songwriter Michelle Shocked , rapper LL Cool J , and synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys —"all kids working out their identities"—as much as it
1620-477: A foundation of simple syncopated rhythms in a 4 meter , with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies often originate from older musical modes such as the Dorian and Mixolydian , as well as major and minor modes. Harmonies range from the common triad to parallel perfect fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Since the late 1950s, and particularly from
1800-609: A frequent addition to the established rock format of guitars, bass, and drums in subsequent progressive rock. Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy and science fiction. The Pretty Things ' SF Sorrow (1968), the Kinks' Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969), and the Who 's Tommy (1969) introduced
1980-464: A key element of indie is the dichotomy between a "puritan ethos" and a "romantic one", with the former using austere ethics, and the latter being eccentric. This is best seen in the contrast between the indie music of United States and the United Kingdom in the 1990s, with British acts being flamboyant performers, while American acts used their lack of virtuosity as a mark of authenticity. Indie rock
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#17328557658132160-612: A key feature of psychedelia. Psychedelic rock reached its apogee in the last years of the decade. 1967 saw the Beatles release their definitive psychedelic statement in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , including the controversial track " Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds ", the Rolling Stones responded later that year with Their Satanic Majesties Request , and Pink Floyd debuted with The Piper at
2340-568: A loud amplified sound, often centered on the electric guitar, based on the Chicago blues , particularly after the tour of Britain by Muddy Waters in 1958, which prompted Cyril Davies and guitarist Alexis Korner to form the band Blues Incorporated . The band involved and inspired many of the figures of the subsequent British blues boom, including members of the Rolling Stones and Cream , combining blues standards and forms with rock instrumentation and emphasis. The other key focus for British blues
2520-572: A mainstream audience with hits including " Blowin' in the Wind " (1963) and " Masters of War " (1963), which brought " protest songs " to a wider public, but, although beginning to influence each other, rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with mutually exclusive audiences. Early attempts to combine elements of folk and rock included the Animals' " House of the Rising Sun " (1964), which
2700-485: A major element of progressive rock. From about 1967 bands like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience had moved away from purely blues-based music into psychedelia . By the 1970s, blues rock had become heavier and more riff-based, exemplified by the work of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple , and the lines between blues rock and hard rock "were barely visible", as bands began recording rock-style albums. The genre
2880-429: A major influence on subsequent electronic rock . With the advent of punk rock and technological changes in the late 1970s, progressive rock was increasingly dismissed as pretentious and overblown. Many bands broke up, but some, including Genesis, ELP, Yes, and Pink Floyd, regularly scored top ten albums with successful accompanying worldwide tours. Some bands which emerged in the aftermath of punk, such as Siouxsie and
3060-410: A more basic form of rock and roll that incorporated its original influences, particularly blues, country and folk music, leading to the creation of country rock and Southern rock. In 1966 Bob Dylan went to Nashville to record the album Blonde on Blonde . This, and subsequent more clearly country-influenced albums, such as Nashville Skyline , have been seen as creating the genre of country folk ,
3240-481: A multibillion-dollar industry and doubling its market while, as Christgau noted, suffering a significant "loss of cultural prestige". "Maybe the Bee Gees became more popular than the Beatles, but they were never more popular than Jesus ", he said. "Insofar as the music retained any mythic power, the myth was self-referential – there were lots of songs about the rock and roll life but very few about how rock could change
3420-570: A national phenomenon. It is often argued that the surf music craze and the careers of almost all surf acts was effectively ended by the arrival of the British Invasion from 1964, because most surf music hits were recorded and released between 1960 and 1965. By the end of 1962, what would become the British rock scene had started with beat groups like the Beatles , Gerry & the Pacemakers and
3600-399: A post-grunge and hardcore on their breakthrough albums Word Gets Around (1997) and Performance and Cocktails (1999), before moving into more melodic territory with Just Enough Education to Perform (2001) and subsequent albums. Feeder , who were initially more influenced by American post-grunge, producing a hard rock sound that led to their breakthrough single " Buck Rogers " and
3780-456: A preacher, prosecutions of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry and the breaking of the payola scandal (which implicated major figures, including Alan Freed, in bribery and corruption in promoting individual acts or songs), gave a sense that the rock and roll era established at that point had come to an end. Rock quickly spread out from its origins in the US, associated with the rapid Americanization that
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#17328557658133960-444: A prog rock influence and while ranking among the most commercially successful acts of the 1970s, heralding the era of pomp or arena rock , which would last until the costs of complex shows (often with theatrical staging and special effects), would be replaced by more economical rock festivals as major live venues in the 1990s. The instrumental strand of the genre resulted in albums like Mike Oldfield 's Tubular Bells (1973),
4140-560: A result, the term "alternative" lost its original counter-cultural meaning and began to refer to the new, commercially lighter form of music that was now achieving mainstream success. New York magazine writer Carl Swanson argued that even the term "sellout" lost its meaning as grunge made it possible for a niche movement, no matter how radical, to be co-opted by the mainstream, cementing the formation of an individualist, fragmented culture. In his book Popular Music: The Key Concepts , media academic Roy Shuker states that "Grunge represented
4320-446: A rigidly delineated musical definition." In the opinion of music journalist Robert Christgau , "the best rock jolts folk-art virtues—directness, utility, natural audience—into the present with shots of modern technology and modernist dissociation ". Rock and roll was conceived as an outlet for adolescent yearnings ... To make rock and roll is also an ideal way to explore intersections of sex, love, violence, and fun, to broadcast
4500-625: A rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. By the late 1960s " classic rock " period, a few distinct rock music subgenres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock , folk rock , country rock , Southern rock , raga rock , and jazz rock , which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock , influenced by the countercultural psychedelic and hippie scene . New genres that emerged included progressive rock , which extended artistic elements, heavy metal , which emphasized an aggressive thick sound, and glam rock , which highlighted showmanship and visual style. In
4680-695: A route pursued by a number of largely acoustic folk musicians. Other acts that followed the back-to-basics trend were the Canadian group the Band and the California-based Creedence Clearwater Revival , both of which mixed basic rock and roll with folk, country and blues, to be among the most successful and influential bands of the late 1960s. The same movement saw the beginning of the recording careers of Californian solo artists like Ry Cooder , Bonnie Raitt and Lowell George , and influenced
4860-478: A slogan one only began to hear in 1972 or so, mobilized all those eager to believe that idealism had become passe, and once they were mobilized, it had. In popular music, embracing the '70s meant both an elitist withdrawal from the messy concert and counterculture scene and a profiteering pursuit of the lowest common denominator in FM radio and album rock . Rock saw greater commodification during this decade, turning into
5040-513: A style and more a categorization, it describes an early 1990s trend of acts who followed in the traditions of early electronic music (composers of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop ), krautrock and synth-pop . Progenitors of the genre were English bands Disco Inferno , Stereolab , and Space . Most musicians in the genre can be found on independent labels like Warp , Morr Music , Sub Pop or Ghostly International . Space rock took
5220-686: A style indebted to '60s-70s bands like the Velvet Underground and the Ramones , the band's intention musically was to sound like "a band from the past that took a time trip into the future to make their record." The album peaked at number thirty-three in the United States, staying in the charts for two additional years and debuted at number two on the UK albums chart . When the Strokes made their commercial debut,
5400-460: A variety of directions, including Dylan and the Byrds, who began to develop country rock . However, the hybridization of folk and rock has been seen as having a major influence on the development of rock music, bringing in elements of psychedelia, and helping to develop the ideas of the singer-songwriter, the protest song, and concepts of "authenticity". Psychedelic music's LSD -inspired vibe began in
5580-522: A variety of sources such as the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music , and rhythm and blues . Christgau characterizes rock lyrics as a "cool medium" with simple diction and repeated refrains, and asserts that rock's primary "function" "pertains to music, or, more generally, noise ." The predominance of white, male, and often middle class musicians in rock music has often been noted, and rock has been seen as an appropriation of Black musical forms for
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5760-501: A young, white and largely male audience. As a result, it has also been seen to articulate the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, "rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality and aggression". Since the term "rock" started being used in preference to "rock and roll" from the late-1960s, it has usually been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics, but from which it
5940-423: Is centered on the electric guitar , usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar , drums , and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a 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. Rock
6120-536: Is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music. Four years later, Bill Haley 's " Rock Around the Clock " (1954) became the first rock and roll song to top Billboard magazine's main sales and airplay charts, and opened the door worldwide for this new wave of popular culture. Other artists with early rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry , Bo Diddley , Fats Domino , Little Richard , Jerry Lee Lewis , and Gene Vincent . Soon rock and roll
6300-464: Is generally agreed that garage rock peaked both commercially and artistically around 1966. By 1968 the style largely disappeared from the national charts and at the local level as amateur musicians faced college, work or the draft . New styles had evolved to replace garage rock. Although the first impact of the British Invasion on American popular music was through beat and R&B based acts,
6480-544: Is in the music of Chuck Berry , the Ramones , and the Replacements . The foundations of rock music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to much of the rest of the world. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various black musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music , with country and western . Debate surrounds
6660-482: Is noted for having a relatively high proportion of female artists compared with preceding rock genres, a tendency exemplified by the development of the feminist-informed riot grrrl music of acts like Bikini Kill , Bratmobile , 7 Year Bitch , Team Dresch and Huggy Bear . However, Cortney Harding pointed out that this sense of equality is not reflected in the number of women running indie labels. The BBC documentary Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie pinpoints
6840-411: Is often distanced by an emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and a focus on serious and progressive themes as part of an ideology of authenticity that is frequently combined with an awareness of the genre's history and development. According to Simon Frith , rock was "something more than pop, something more than rock and roll" and "[r]ock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with
7020-399: Is termed as a rock band or a rock group. Furthermore, it typically consists of between three (the power trio ) and five members. Classically, a rock band takes the form of a quartet whose members cover one or more roles, including vocalist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass guitarist, drummer, and often keyboard player or another instrumentalist. Rock music is traditionally built on
7200-528: The Billboard Hot 100 . The British Invasion greatly influenced garage bands, providing them with a national audience, leading many (often surf or hot rod groups) to adopt a British influence, and encouraging many more groups to form. Thousands of garage bands were extant in the United States and Canada during the era and hundreds produced regional hits. Despite scores of bands being signed to major or large regional labels, most were commercial failures. It
7380-519: The American folk music revival had grown to a major movement, using traditional music and new compositions in a traditional style, usually on acoustic instruments. In America the genre was pioneered by figures such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and often identified with progressive or labor politics . In the early sixties figures such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan had come to the fore in this movement as singer-songwriters. Dylan had begun to reach
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7560-546: The Billboard 200 chart, becoming the band's highest-charting album in the United States. In August 2017, AM was certified platinum by the RIAA for combined sales and album-equivalent units over of a million units in the United States. As of the 14th of April 2023 every track from the album was certified silver or higher by the BPI with "Mad Sounds" being the last to be certified. When
7740-422: The garage rock / post-punk revival in the 2000s. Since the 2010s, rock has lost its position as the pre-eminent popular music genre in world culture, but remains commercially successful. The increased influence of hip-hop and electronic dance music can be seen in rock music, notably in the techno-pop scene of the early 2010s and the pop-punk-hip-hop revival of the 2020s. Rock has also embodied and served as
7920-417: 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 . At the same time, it has been commercially highly successful, leading to accusations of selling out . A good definition of rock, in fact, is that it's popular music that to
8100-452: The psychedelic rock , ambient music influence of Pink Floyd and Hawkwind and incorporated them into an indie rock context. The style began with Spacemen 3 in the 1980s, with later groups including Spiritualized , Flying Saucer Attack , Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Quickspace . As Britpop waned towards the end of the decade, post-Britpop took hold within the UK's indie rock scene. From about 1997, as dissatisfaction grew with
8280-473: The " slacker " stereotype, and as a defining anthem of 90s indie rock. With the rise of Britpop , many of Britain's earlier indie rock bands fell into obscurity. Fronted by Blur , Oasis , Pulp and Suede , the bands in the movement were advertised as being underground artists, as a means to compete commercially with the United States' grunge scene. While Britpop was stylistically indebted to indie rock and began as an offshoot of it, Britpop bands abandoned
8460-454: The 1950s saw the growth in popularity of the electric guitar, and the development of a specifically rock and roll style of playing through such exponents as Chuck Berry, Link Wray , and Scotty Moore . The use of distortion , pioneered by Western swing guitarists such as Junior Barnard and Eldon Shamblin was popularized by Chuck Berry in the mid-1950s. The use of power chords , pioneered by Francisco Tárrega and Heitor Villa-Lobos in
8640-412: The 1975 's merger of indie rock and mainstream pop began gaining commercial attraction in the early 2010s, it was controversial; they received the award for "Worst Band" at the 2014 NME Awards , but by 2017 received "Best Live Band" at the same award show. Alternative Press writer Yasmine Summan stated that "If you could summarize 2013 and 2014 in one album for indie and alternative fans, it would be
8820-519: The 1975's self-titled release ". In an article for the Guardian accrediting the 1975 as the band to "usher indie into the mainstream", writer Mark Beaumont compared vocalist Matty Healy's influence on the genre to that of Libertines vocalist Pete Doherty , and Pitchfork listed them as one of the most influential artists in music since 1995. In the 1975's wake, a number of other indie pop artist gained popularity. Some critics termed this phenomenon "Healywave", which notably included: Pale Waves ,
9000-585: The 1980s closed, both Sonic Youth and the Pixies signed to major labels. In the late 1980s, the indie rock subgenre shoegaze emerged, as a continuation of the wall of sound production being used by groups like the Jesus and Mary Chain. The genre merged this with influences from Dinosaur Jr. and the Cocteau Twins , to create a dark and droning style so cacophonous that instruments were often indistinguishable. The genre
9180-461: The 19th century and later on by Willie Johnson and Pat Hare in the early 1950s, was popularized by Link Wray in the late 1950s. Commentators have traditionally perceived a decline of rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By 1959, the death of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in a plane crash, the departure of Elvis for the army, the retirement of Little Richard to become
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#17328557658139360-554: The 2010s Arcade Fire 's The Suburbs (2010), the Black Keys's Turn Blue (2014), Kings of Leon's Walls (2016), the Killers's Wonderful Wonderful (2017), which reached number one on the Billboard charts in the United States and the official chart in the United Kingdom, with Arcade Fire's album winning a Grammy for Album of The Year in 2011. Other indie rock acts like Florence and
9540-453: The Aces , Joan , Fickle Friends and No Rome . Of this group, Pale Waves were particularly commercially prominent, with their debut album My Mind Makes Noises peaking at number eight on the UK albums chart, Who Am I? (2021) at number three and Unwanted (2022) at number four. At around the same time Wolf Alice became a prominent force in the scene, with their second album Visions of
9720-837: The Apples in Stereo , Beulah , Circulatory System , Elf Power , the Minders , Neutral Milk Hotel , of Montreal and the Olivia Tremor Control – merged indie rock with psychedelic pop . Gimme Indie Rock author Andrew Earles stated that the collective, namely Neutral Milk Hotel on On Avery Island (1996), "helped keep the genre artistically relevant while other bands defected and other underground styles rose to prominence". Indie electronic or indietronica covers rock-based artists who share an affinity for electronic music, using samplers, synthesizers, drum machines, and computer programs. Less
9900-472: The Banshees , Ultravox , and Simple Minds , showed the influence of progressive rock, as well as their more usually recognized punk influences. In the late 1960s, jazz-rock emerged as a distinct subgenre out of the blues-rock, psychedelic, and progressive rock scenes, mixing the power of rock with the musical complexity and improvisational elements of jazz. AllMusic states that the term jazz-rock "may refer to
10080-609: The Beatles, demonstrating "to the rock generation in general that an album could be a major standalone statement without hit singles", such as on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963). Folk rock particularly took off in California, where it led acts like the Mamas & the Papas and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to move to electric instrumentation, and in New York, where it spawned performers including
10260-596: The Byrds ' shift from folk to folk rock from 1965. The psychedelic lifestyle, which revolved around hallucinogenic drugs, had already developed in San Francisco and particularly prominent products of the scene were Big Brother and the Holding Company , the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane . The Jimi Hendrix Experience 's lead guitarist, Jimi Hendrix did extended distorted, feedback-filled jams which became
10440-431: The Byrds adopted rock instrumentation, including drums and 12-string Rickenbacker guitars, which became a major element in the sound of the genre. Later that year Dylan adopted electric instruments, much to the outrage of many folk purists, with his " Like a Rolling Stone " becoming a US hit single. According to Ritchie Unterberger , Dylan (even before his adoption of electric instruments) influenced rock musicians like
10620-640: The Clash , the Kinks , the Smiths and the Jam , the band's style of tinny, high register, sometimes acoustic, guitar parts topped by lyrics of British parochial pleasures in the vocalists' authentic English accents became widely imitated. The Fratellis , the Kooks , and the View were three such acts to gain significant commercial success, although the most prominent post-Libertines band
10800-612: The Cribs , Bloc Party , Kaiser Chiefs and the Others . However, the Libertines , who formed in 1997, stood as the UK's counterpoint to the Strokes, being described by AllMusic as "one of the U.K.'s most influential 21st century acts" and the Independent stating that "the Libertines wanted to be an important band, but they could not have predicted the impact they would have". Influenced by
10980-578: The Dominos , followed by an extensive solo career that helped bring blues rock into the mainstream. Green, along with the Bluesbreaker's rhythm section Mick Fleetwood and John McVie , formed Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac , who enjoyed some of the greatest commercial success in the genre. In the late 1960s Jeff Beck , also an alumnus of the Yardbirds, moved blues rock in the direction of heavy rock with his band,
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#173285576581311160-568: The DoubleHappys and Straitjacket Fits . Knox later formed another short-lived punk band called Toy Love , and after it broke up, he went on to start the influential band Tall Dwarfs , who were an integral influence on the emergence of home-recorded lo-fi indie . The punk-inspired aspects of the scene were often inspired by opposition to Robert Muldoon and his government, which prompted satire or outright criticism. The scene saw bands take influence from punk rock, but strip away its aggression for
11340-628: The Fall , Buzzcocks , Wire , Television and Joy Division would be influential to the genre. Allmusic identifies indie rock as including a number of "varying musical approaches [not] compatible with mainstream tastes". Linked by an ethos more than a musical approach, the indie rock movement encompassed a wide range of styles, from hard-edged, grunge-influenced bands, through do-it-yourself experimental bands like Pavement , to punk-folk singers such as Ani DiFranco . In his book DIY Style: Fashion, Music and Global Digital Cultures , Brent Luvaas described
11520-499: The Gates of Dawn . Key recordings included Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and the Doors ' self-titled debut album . These trends peaked in the 1969 Woodstock festival , which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts. Sgt. Pepper was later regarded as the greatest album of all time and a starting point for the album era , during which rock music transitioned from
11700-481: The Head (2002) went multi-platinum , establishing them as one of the most popular acts in the world by the time of their third album X&Y (2005). Snow Patrol's " Chasing Cars " (from their 2006 album Eyes Open ) is the most widely played song of the 21st century on UK radio. The mainstream attention which indie rock garnered in the 2000s began with the Strokes and their 2001 debut album Is This It . Playing
11880-581: The Hunters Club and Scum Pups . In the early 1990s, the Seattle grunge scene, and its most visible acts, Nirvana , Pearl Jam , Soundgarden and Alice in Chains , broke into the mainstream. The monumental success of these bands, particularly Nirvana, brought increased attention to the indie rock scene, which initiated a shift in which the indie rock descriptor became displaced by the term alternative rock . As
12060-406: The Jeff Beck Group . The last Yardbirds guitarist was Jimmy Page , who went on to form The New Yardbirds which rapidly became Led Zeppelin . Many of the songs on their first three albums, and occasionally later in their careers, were expansions on traditional blues songs. In America, blues rock had been pioneered in the early 1960s by guitarist Lonnie Mack , but the genre began to take off in
12240-403: The Joint " (1949), also covered by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1952; and " Rocket 88 " by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (in fact, Ike Turner and his band the Kings of Rhythm ), recorded by Sam Phillips for Chess Records in 1951. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music (then termed " race music ") for a multi-racial audience, and
12420-451: The Lovin' Spoonful and Simon and Garfunkel , with the latter's acoustic " The Sounds of Silence " (1965) being remixed with rock instruments to be the first of many hits. These acts directly influenced British performers like Donovan and Fairport Convention . In 1969 Fairport Convention abandoned their mixture of American covers and Dylan-influenced songs to play traditional English folk music on electric instruments. This British folk-rock
12600-478: The Machine , the Decemberists and LCD Soundsystem gained number one singles in the United States during the decade, with Vampire Weekend , Florence and the Machine, Arctic Monkeys, Bon Iver , the Killers and the Postal Service gaining platinum selling records. Vampire Weekend's third studio album Modern Vampires of the City (2013) received the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in 2014, with Consequence writer Tyler Clark stating that in 2019 it
12780-442: The Promise Ring and Cap'n Jazz distanced emo from its hardcore roots and allowed the genre to develop a much more realised scene than its first wave. This style of emo broke into mainstream culture in the early 2000s, with the platinum-selling success of Jimmy Eat World 's Bleed American (2001) and Dashboard Confessional 's The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most (2001). One particularly notable scene during this wave
12960-427: The Replacements releasing albums on majors in the middle of the decade. While these albums did not see the same success as R.E.M., and major labels soon lost interest in the scene, they did have a large impact on younger bands. In the following years, Sonic Youth , Dinosaur Jr. and Unrest began to release music on independent labels indebted to these bands, and soon too picked up the categorisation of indie rock. As
13140-476: The Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds , were much more directly influenced by rhythm and blues and later blues music. Soon these groups were composing their own material, combining US forms of music and infusing it with a high energy beat. Beat bands tended towards "bouncy, irresistible melodies", while early British blues acts tended towards less sexually innocent, more aggressive songs, often adopting an anti-establishment stance. There was, however, particularly in
13320-573: The Searchers from Liverpool and Freddie and the Dreamers , Herman's Hermits and the Hollies from Manchester. They drew on a wide range of American influences including 1950s rock and roll, soul, rhythm and blues, and surf music, initially reinterpreting standard American tunes and playing for dancers. Bands like the Animals from Newcastle and Them from Belfast , and particularly those from London like
13500-650: The Seeds ) to near-studio musician quality (including the Knickerbockers , the Remains , and the Fifth Estate ). There were also regional variations in many parts of the country with flourishing scenes particularly in California and Texas. The Pacific Northwest states of Washington and Oregon had perhaps the most defined regional sound. The style had been evolving from regional scenes as early as 1958. "Tall Cool One" (1959) by
13680-498: The Smiths and R.E.M. . The genre solidified itself during the mid–1980s with NME ' s C86 cassette in the United Kingdom and the underground success of Sonic Youth , Dinosaur Jr. and Unrest in the United States. During the decade, indie rock bands like Sonic Youth, the Pixies and Radiohead all released albums on major labels and subgenres like slowcore , Midwest emo , slacker rock and space rock began. By this time, "indie" had evolved to refer to bands whose music
13860-694: The Smiths. The Madchester movement burgeoned by 1989, with the success of the Happy Mondays second album Bummed and the Stone Roses ' self-titled debut , which became the most influential work in the scene. In the following years, addition high profile acts included the Charlatans , 808 State and the Inspiral Carpets . The Madchester scene's distinct combination of indie rock and dance music became termed indie dance by critics, or more specifically
14040-560: The Top 40; however many bands in its twenty-two track runtime also fell into obscurity. In the United States, the popularity of R.E.M. allowed those disliking of hardcore punk 's aggression to become a part of the underground music scene. This empowered an array of musicians, particularly those in what would become the post-hardcore scene as led by the Minutemen . Furthermore, major labels began to pursue underground bands, with both Hüsker Dü and
14220-592: The UK with their first five albums. As of June 2019, AM has spent 300 weeks in the top 100 of the UK Albums Chart . The album also peaked at number one in Australia, Belgium (Flanders), Croatia, Slovenia, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Portugal, and reached top ten positions in several other countries. In the United States, the album sold 42,000 copies in its first week, and debuted at number six on
14400-415: The US top 40 and was nominated for a Grammy Award), Bright Eyes (who in 2004 had two singles at the top of the Billboard magazine Hot 100 Single Sales ) and Death Cab for Cutie (whose 2005 album Plans debuted at number four in the US, remaining on the Billboard charts for nearly one year and achieving platinum status and a Grammy nomination). This new commercial breakthrough and the widespread use of
14580-676: The US was becoming dominated by lightweight pop and ballads, British rock groups at clubs and local dances were developing a style more strongly influenced by blues-rock pioneers, and were starting to play with an intensity and drive seldom found in white American acts; this influence would go on to shape the future of rock music through the British Invasion . The first four years of the 1960s has traditionally been seen as an era of hiatus for rock and roll. More recently some authors have emphasised important innovations and trends in this period without which future developments would not have been possible. While early rock and roll, particularly through
14760-519: The US, and the Smiths , from the UK, who Matthew Bannister states were the earliest indie rock groups. These bands' influence was showcased quickly seen in the formation of Let's Active , the Housemartins and the La's . By this time, the term "indie rock" had begun to be used to describe the bands who produced music on independent record labels, rather than simply the record labels themselves. This made it
14940-604: The USSR and South Africa from 1955 to 1957, influencing the globalisation of rock. Johnny O'Keefe 's 1958 record " Wild One " was one of the earliest Australian rock and roll hits. By the late 1950s, as well as in the American-influenced Western world, rock was popular in communist states such as Yugoslavia, and the USSR, as well as in regions such as South America. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, American blues music and blues rock artists, who had been surpassed by
15120-530: The United Kingdom, NME released the C86 compilation cassette, which consisted of tracks by groups including Primal Scream , the Pastels and the Wedding Present . Intended to showcase the UK's current independent music scene, the album was made up of groups combining elements of jangle pop, post-punk and Phil Spector indebted Walls of Sound . In 2006, Bob Stanley called it "the beginning of indie music". C86 became
15300-470: The United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles from the mid-1960s, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has its roots in rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the genres of blues , rhythm and blues , and country music . Rock also drew strongly from genres such as electric blues and folk , and incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock
15480-722: The Wailers and " Louie Louie " by the Kingsmen (1963) are mainstream examples of the genre in its formative stages. By 1963, garage band singles were creeping into the national charts in greater numbers, including Paul Revere and the Raiders (Boise), the Trashmen (Minneapolis) and the Rivieras (South Bend, Indiana). Other influential garage bands, such as the Sonics (Tacoma, Washington), never reached
15660-679: The White Stripes , the Vines , and the Hives . These groups were christened by parts of the media as the "The" bands, and dubbed "the saviours of rock 'n' roll", prompting Rolling Stone magazine to declare on its September 2002 cover, "Rock is Back!" The success of the Strokes revitalised the then-dying underground post-Britpop scene in the United Kingdom with groups who took the band's influence and experimented with their sound. This first wave of UK acts included Franz Ferdinand , Kasabian , Maxïmo Park ,
15840-561: The Wonder Stuff and Ned's Atomic Dustbin , "grebo" was broadly defined, and was used more as a name for the Stourbridge scene than as a genre label. However, the bands quickly gained attention: Pop Will Eat Itself's 1989 singles " Wise Up! Sucker " and " Can U Dig It? " both entered the UK Top 40 and Stourbridge briefly became a tourist attraction for young indie rock fans. The seminal albums from
16020-448: The Word magazine. A 2020 Vice article cited Johnny Borrell , vocalist of Razorlight , as the "one man who defined, embodied and lived Landfill Indie" due his forming of a "spectacularly middle-of-the-road" band despite his close proximity to the Libertines' "desperate kinetic energy, mythologised love-hate dynamic and vision of a dilapidated Britain animated by romance and narcotics". In
16200-527: The advent of rockabilly, saw the greatest commercial success for male and white performers, in this era, the genre was dominated by black and female artists. Rock and roll had not disappeared entirely from music at the end of the 1950s and some of its energy can be seen in the various dance crazes of the early 1960s, started by Chubby Checker 's record " The Twist " (1960). Some music historians have also pointed to important and innovative technical developments that built on rock and roll in this period, including
16380-452: The album Echo Park (2001). After the death of their drummer Jon Lee , they moved to a more reflective and introspective mode on Comfort in Sound (2002), their most commercially successful album to that point, which spawned a series of hit singles. The most commercially successful band in the millennium were Coldplay , whose first two albums Parachutes (2000) and A Rush of Blood to
16560-639: The band's name became Wild Beasts. At this time, the quartet had convened in a recording and rehearsal space dubbed Studio 6 in Kendal, where they recorded their eponymous demo EP in June 2004. In September 2005, the band relocated to Leeds and Tom Fleming replaced Bullock as full-time bassist. All the bandmembers apart from Little studied at the local university, and played their first Leeds gig at Trash (formerly The Mixing Tin). The new quartet recorded two further demo EPs, Esprit De Corps and All Men . Wild Beasts signed
16740-435: The bands they host have attempted to retain their autonomy, leaving them free to explore sounds, emotions and subjects of limited appeal to large, mainstream audiences. The influences and styles of the artists have been extremely diverse, including punk , psychedelia , post-punk and country . The lo-fi , experimental and art rock sound of the Velvet Underground as well as late '70s punk and post-punk bands such as
16920-575: The biggest selling rock band of all time and they were followed into the US charts by numerous British bands. During the next two years British acts dominated their own and the US charts with Peter and Gordon , the Animals, Manfred Mann , Petula Clark , Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders , Herman's Hermits, the Rolling Stones, the Troggs , and Donovan all having one or more number one singles. Other major acts that were part of
17100-456: The chart. Their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964, drawing an estimated 73 million viewers (at the time a record for an American television program) is considered a milestone in American pop culture. During the week of 4 April 1964, the Beatles held 12 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the entire top five. The Beatles went on to become
17280-511: The coining of the term "indie" to the 1977 self-publication of the Spiral Scratch EP by Manchester punk rock band the Buzzcocks , on their Ind ependent record label New Hormones . This inspired a DIY punk movement where bands like Swell Maps , 'O' Level , Television Personalities and Desperate Bicycles followed suit in pressing and distributing their own records. Distribution
17460-750: The concept of Cool Britannia and Britpop as a movement began to dissolve, emerging bands began to avoid the Britpop label while still producing music derived from it. After the decline of Britpop they began to gain more critical and popular attention. The Verve 's album Urban Hymns (1997) was a worldwide hit and their commercial peak before they broke up in 1999, while Radiohead – although having achieved moderate recognition with The Bends in 1995 – achieved near-universal critical acclaim with their experimental third album OK Computer (1997), and its follow-ups Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001). Stereophonics , used elements of
17640-479: The covers of magazines like NME and Melody Maker . Grebo bands were distinct from prior indie rock groups not only because of their broad influences, but their subversion of the twee or unhappy moods of most other bands in the genre, and their pursuit of a heavier sound and aesthetic. The scene came to include the stylistically similar bands of nearby Leicester: the Bomb Party , Gaye Bykers on Acid , Crazyhead ,
17820-424: The delights and limitations of the regional , and to deal with the depredations and benefits of mass culture itself. — Robert Christgau in Christgau's Record Guide (1981) Unlike many earlier styles of popular music, rock lyrics have dealt with a wide range of themes, including romantic love, sex, rebellion against " The Establishment ", social concerns, and life styles. These themes were inherited from
18000-467: The development of indie rock's sound. According to Audioculture , one of the earliest Dunedin Sound band was Chris Knox 's band the Enemy , which emerged as a post-punk group, whose members also included Alec Bathgate . Although the group was only around for a short time, their shows impressed the teenage musicians that came to see them, including a young Shayne Carter , who went on to form Bored Games ,
18180-445: The distinctive 'protest' element of British-based independent music" Music journalist John Harris has suggested that Britpop began when Blur's fourth single " Popscene " and Suede's debut " The Drowners " were released around the same time in the spring of 1992. He stated, "[I]f Britpop started anywhere, it was the deluge of acclaim that greeted Suede's first records: all of them audacious, successful and very, very British." Suede were
18360-635: The dominant sound was a style of indie rock that was heavily indebted to punk and Nirvana's album Bleach album, while also occasionally making use of drum machines . Gigwise writer Steven Kline described the style as "filthy guitars, filthier hair and t-shirts only a mother would wash". Prominent fraggle acts included Senseless Things , Mega City Four and Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine . Spin writer Charles Aaron described Pavement and Guided by Voices as "the two bands that came to exemplify indie rock in this period, and still define
18540-451: The early 1970s among existing blues-rock and psychedelic bands, as well as newly formed acts. The vibrant Canterbury scene saw acts following Soft Machine from psychedelia, through jazz influences, toward more expansive hard rock, including Caravan , Hatfield and the North , Gong , and National Health . The French group Magma around drummer Christian Vander almost single-handedly created
18720-455: The early 1970s, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981): The decade is, of course, an arbitrary schema itself—time doesn't just execute a neat turn toward the future every ten years. But like a lot of artificial concepts—money, say—the category does take on a reality of its own once people figure out how to put it to work. "The '60s are over,"
18900-457: The early stages, considerable musical crossover between the two tendencies. By 1963, led by the Beatles, beat groups had begun to achieve national success in Britain, soon to be followed into the charts by the more rhythm and blues focused acts. " I Want to Hold Your Hand " was the Beatles' first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 , spending seven weeks at the top and a total of 15 weeks on
19080-533: The early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent record labels , by the 1990s it became more widely associated with the music such bands produced. The sound of indie rock has its origins in the New Zealand Dunedin sound of the Chills , Sneaky Feelings , Tall Dwarfs , the Clean and the Verlaines , and early 1980s college rock radio stations who would frequently play jangle pop bands like
19260-510: The electronic treatment of sound by such innovators as Joe Meek , and the elaborate production methods of the Wall of Sound pursued by Phil Spector . The instrumental rock and roll of performers such as Duane Eddy , Link Wray and the Ventures was further developed by Dick Dale , who added distinctive "wet" reverb , rapid alternate picking, and Middle Eastern and Mexican influences. He produced
19440-568: The example set by the Beatles ' 1965 LP Rubber Soul in particular, other British rock acts released rock albums intended as artistic statements in 1966, including the Rolling Stones ' Aftermath , the Beatles' own Revolver , and the Who 's A Quick One , as well as American acts in the Beach Boys ( Pet Sounds ) and Bob Dylan ( Blonde on Blonde ). Garage rock was a raw form of rock music, particularly prevalent in North America in
19620-643: The first UK punk single " New Rose " by the Damned In Australia , the Saints had their first punk release outside the US, " (I'm) Stranded ," on their own "Fatal Records" label. This was followed by the Go-Betweens releasing ' Lee Remick ' a few months later. Dunedin produced the independent record label Flying Nun Records , whose artists defined the Dunedin sound , which would be particularly influential on
19800-446: The first of the new crop of guitar-orientated bands to be embraced by the UK music media as Britain's answer to Seattle's grunge sound. Their debut album Suede for the fastest-selling debut album in the UK. Sunny Day Real Estate 's debut album, Diary (1994), began a new wave of the emo genre, by incorporating elements of it into their indie rock sound. Sunny Day Real Estate and other second wave emo bands, including Piebald ,
19980-491: The first record, and worldwide hit, for the Virgin Records label, which became a mainstay of the genre. Instrumental rock was particularly significant in continental Europe, allowing bands like Kraftwerk , Tangerine Dream , Can , Focus (band) and Faust to circumvent the language barrier. Their synthesiser-heavy " krautrock ", along with the work of Brian Eno (for a time the keyboard player with Roxy Music ), would be
20160-451: The folk scene. The first group to advertise themselves as psychedelic rock were the 13th Floor Elevators from Texas. The Beatles introduced many of the major elements of the psychedelic sound to audiences in this period, such as guitar feedback , the Indian sitar and backmasking sound effects . Psychedelic rock particularly took off in California's emerging music scene as groups followed
20340-487: The following years the Jesus and Mary Chain and Flying Nun Records bands like the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience morphed the genre into a slower, darker and more hypnotic style. The number of college radio stations in the US decreased significantly following NPR 's lobbying against noncommercial station during the 1980s. In turn, the name "college rock" fell into disfavour, soon being replaced by "indie". In
20520-503: The format of rock operas and opened the door to concept albums , often telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme. King Crimson 's 1969 début album, In the Court of the Crimson King , which mixed powerful guitar riffs and mellotron , with jazz and symphonic music , is often taken as the key recording in progressive rock, helping the widespread adoption of the genre in
20700-420: The genre and saw record labels use their independent status as a marketing tactic. This led to a split within indie rock: one side conforming to mainstream radio; the other becoming increasingly experimental. By this point, "indie rock" referred to the musical style rather than ties to the independent music scene. In the 2000s, indie rock reentered the mainstream through the garage rock and post-punk revival and
20880-517: The genre as rooted in nostalgia, citing the influence of garage rock and psychedelic rock of the 1960s in progenitors the Stone Roses and the Smiths , in addition to a lyrical preoccupation with literature. In this same vein, Matthew Bannister defined indie rock as "small groups of white men playing guitars, influenced by punks and 1960s white pop/rock, within a broader discourse and practice of (degrees of) independence from mainstream musical values." According to anthropologist Wendy Fonarow ,
21060-497: The genre's earlier anti-establishment politics and instead brought it into the mainstream, with bands like Blur and Pulp even signing to major labels. In her essay Labouring the Point? The Politics of Britain in "New Britain" , politician and academic Rupa Huq states that Britpop "began as an offshoot of the independent British music scene but arguably ended up killing it, as a convergence took place between indie and mainstream, removing
21240-472: The genre, with Bandcamp Daily writer Robert Rubsam, calling them the "fountainhead for all that would come". The first wave of bands in the genre included Red House Painters , Codeine , Bedhead , Ida and Low . The genre originated from around the United States, with no geographic focus, and very little interaction between its artists. A younger subset of grebo bands emerged around 1991, who were in turn labelled "fraggle" bands. During this movement,
21420-420: The growing popularity of college radio stations, primarily in the United States, who would play independent artists of various genres, including alternative rock , new wave , post-hardcore and post-punk . The bands broadcast on these station became dubbed " college rock " by fans, another term which lacked any stylistic implication. The most prominent college rock bands were jangle pop groups R.E.M. , from
21600-453: The impetus was soon taken up by a second wave of bands that drew their inspiration more directly from American blues , including the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds . British blues musicians of the late 1950s and early 1960s had been inspired by the acoustic playing of figures such as Lead Belly , who was a major influence on the Skiffle craze, and Robert Johnson . Increasingly they adopted
21780-580: The influence of the Strokes and the Libertines . This success was exacerbated in the middle of the decade by Bloc Party , the Arctic Monkeys and the Killers and indie rock proliferated into the landfill indie movement. The term indie rock, which comes from "independent", describes the small and relatively low-budget labels on which it is released and the do-it-yourself attitude of the bands and artists involved. Although distribution deals are often struck with major corporate companies, these labels and
21960-460: The invasion included the Kinks and the Dave Clark Five . The British Invasion helped internationalize the production of rock and roll, opening the door for subsequent British (and Irish) performers to achieve international success. In America it arguably spelled the end of instrumental surf music, vocal girl groups and (for a time) the teen idols , that had dominated the American charts in
22140-511: The label were R&B oriented white rock bands that made use of jazzy horn sections, like Electric Flag , Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago , to become some of the most commercially successful acts of the later 1960s and the early 1970s. British acts to emerge in the same period from the blues scene, to make use of the tonal and improvisational aspects of jazz, included Nucleus and the Graham Bond and John Mayall spin-off Colosseum . From
22320-552: The last 13 years, including a 35-week run peaking at number 49 in 2016–2017. Furthermore, it was the UK's most streamed pre-2010 song, until it was surpassed in late 2018, and continued to be purchased for download hundreds of times a week by 2017. In March 2018, the song reached the milestone of staying in the Top 100 of the UK Singles Chart for 200 weeks. The impact of the Strokes, the Libertines and Bloc Party led to significant major label interest in indie rock artists, which
22500-446: The late 1950s and 1960s. It dented the careers of established R&B acts like Fats Domino and Chubby Checker and even temporarily derailed the chart success of surviving rock and roll acts, including Elvis. The British Invasion also played a major part in the rise of a distinct genre of rock music, and cemented the primacy of the rock group, based on guitars and drums and producing their own material as singer-songwriters. Following
22680-672: The late 1980s. Defined by its merger of C86 indie rock, dance music and Hedonist rave culture, particularly its emphasis on the use of psychedelic drugs, the scene was centred in Manchester . The scene was based around the Haçienda nightclub, which opened in May 1982 as an initiative of Factory Records . For the first few years of its life, the club played predominantly club-oriented pop music and hosted performances by artists including New Order , Cabaret Voltaire , Culture Club , Thompson Twins and
22860-410: The loudest, wildest, most electrified fusion bands from the jazz camp, but most often it describes performers coming from the rock side of the equation." Jazz-rock "...generally grew out of the most artistically ambitious rock subgenres of the late '60s and early '70s", including the singer-songwriter movement. Many early US rock and roll musicians had begun in jazz and carried some of these elements into
23040-495: The mainstreaming of the North American indie rock ethic and style of the 1980s", going on to explain that a band's status as independent became "As much a marketing device as [indie rock and alternative rock were an] identifiable 'sound'". In the wake of this increased attention, indie rock experienced a split: accessible bands who catered to the now-popular alternative rock radio; and bands who continued to experiment, advancing in
23220-476: The many recordings which have been suggested as "the first rock and roll record ". Contenders include " Strange Things Happening Every Day " by Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1944); " That's All Right " by Arthur Crudup (1946), which was later covered by Elvis Presley in 1954; " The House of Blue Lights " by Ella Mae Morse and Freddie Slack (1946); Wynonie Harris ' " Good Rocking Tonight " (1948); Goree Carter 's "Rock Awhile" (1949); Jimmy Preston 's " Rock
23400-669: The mid-1950s by white singers such as Carl Perkins , Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and with the greatest commercial success, Elvis Presley . Hispanic and Latino American movements in rock and roll, which would eventually lead to the success of Latin rock and Chicano rock within the US, began to rise in the Southwest ; with rock and roll standard musician Ritchie Valens and even those within other heritage genres, such as Al Hurricane along with his brothers Tiny Morrie and Baby Gaby as they began combining rock and roll with country- western within traditional New Mexico music . In addition,
23580-603: The mid-1960s the Left Banke , the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys, had pioneered the inclusion of harpsichords , wind , and string sections on their recordings to produce a form of Baroque rock and can be heard in singles like Procol Harum 's " A Whiter Shade of Pale " (1967), with its Bach -inspired introduction. The Moody Blues used a full orchestra on their album Days of Future Passed (1967) and subsequently created orchestral sounds with synthesizers. Classical orchestration, keyboards, and synthesizers were
23760-479: The mid-1960s and so called because of the perception that it was rehearsed in the suburban family garage. Garage rock songs often revolved around the traumas of high school life, with songs about "lying girls" and unfair social circumstances being particularly common. The lyrics and delivery tended to be more aggressive than was common at the time, often with growled or shouted vocals that dissolved into incoherent screaming. They ranged from crude one-chord music (like
23940-435: The mid-1960s as acts developed a sound similar to British blues musicians. Key acts included Paul Butterfield (whose band acted like Mayall's Bluesbreakers in Britain as a starting point for many successful musicians), Canned Heat , the early Jefferson Airplane , Janis Joplin , Johnny Winter , the J. Geils Band and Jimi Hendrix with his power trios , the Jimi Hendrix Experience (which included two British members, and
24120-401: The mid-1960s onwards, rock music often used the verse–chorus structure derived from blues and folk music, but there has been considerable variation from this model. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock. Because of its complex history and its tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that "it is impossible to bind rock music to
24300-473: The name One True Pairing, releasing his self-titled debut album in September 2019. Thorpe has gone on to release two further studio albums, Moondust for My Diamond (2021) and Ness (2024), with Fleming releasing his folk -influenced second studio album Endless Rain in 2024. Indie rock Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in
24480-461: The new music genre zeuhl with their first albums in the early 1970s. Greater commercial success was enjoyed by Pink Floyd, who also moved away from psychedelia after the departure of Syd Barrett in 1968, with The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), seen as a masterpiece of the genre, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time. There was an emphasis on instrumental virtuosity, with Yes showcasing
24660-591: The new music. In Britain the subgenre of blues rock, and many of its leading figures, like Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce of the Eric Clapton -fronted band Cream , had emerged from the British jazz scene. Often highlighted as the first true jazz-rock recording is the only album by the relatively obscure New York–based the Free Spirits with Out of Sight and Sound (1966). The first group of bands to self-consciously use
24840-463: The only genre at the time which was defined by the methods by which the music was distributed rather than the sound of said music. Journalist Steve Taylor also cited the bands involved in the Paisley Underground scene as early indie groups. However, this jangly style became increasingly mainstream as the decade progressed leading subsequent indie rock bands to abandon this style. Instead, in
25020-465: The psychedelic rock and the Canterbury scenes came Soft Machine, who, it has been suggested, produced one of the artistically successfully fusions of the two genres. Perhaps the most critically acclaimed fusion came from the jazz side of the equation, with Miles Davis , particularly influenced by the work of Hendrix, incorporating rock instrumentation into his sound for the album Bitches Brew (1970). It
25200-524: The public perception of "rock music" was based in post-grunge , nu metal and rap rock , putting their throwback style of garage rock as a stark contrast to the mainstream. The band's immediate influence allowed fellow classic rock influenced New York bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs , Interpol and TV on the Radio to gain mainstream attention. The Strokes were accompanied in this commercial breakthrough by
25380-628: The regional hit " Let's Go Trippin ' " in 1961 and launched the surf music craze, following up with songs like " Misirlou " (1962). Like Dale and his Del-Tones , most early surf bands were formed in Southern California, including the Bel-Airs , the Challengers , and Eddie & the Showmen . The Chantays scored a top ten national hit with " Pipeline " in 1963 and probably the best-known surf tune
25560-400: The rise of rock and roll in the US, found new popularity in the UK, visiting with successful tours. Lonnie Donegan 's 1955 hit " Rock Island Line " was a major influence and helped to develop the trend of skiffle music groups throughout the country, many of which, including John Lennon 's Quarrymen (later the Beatles ), moved on to play rock and roll. While former rock and roll market in
25740-475: The romantic concept of art as artistic expression, original and sincere". In the new millennium, the term rock has occasionally been used as a blanket term including forms like pop music, reggae music , soul music , and even hip hop , which it has been influenced with but often contrasted through much of its history. Christgau has used the term broadly to refer to popular and semipopular music that caters to his sensibility as "a rock-and-roller", including
25920-517: The same era, and by percussion produced from a drum kit that combines drums and cymbals. This trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, the Hammond organ , and the synthesizer. The basic rock instrumentation was derived from the basic blues band instrumentation (prominent lead guitar, second chordal instrument, bass, and drums). A group of musicians performing rock music
26100-578: The scene were released between 1989 and 1993: the Wonder Stuff's Hup and Never Loved Elvis ; Ned's Atomic Dustbin's God Fodder and Are You Normal? ; and Pop Will Eat Itself's This Is the Day...This Is the Hour...This Is This! and The Looks or the Lifestyle? . In this period, the scene's bands became fixtures, sometimes headliners, at Reading Festival , sold millions of albums and were frequently featured on
26280-555: The second half of the 1970s, punk rock reacted by producing stripped-down, energetic social and political critiques. Punk was an influence in the 1980s on new wave , post-punk and eventually alternative rock . From the 1990s, alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break into the mainstream in the form of grunge , Britpop , and indie rock . Further fusion subgenres have since emerged, including pop-punk , electronic rock , rap rock , and rap metal . Some movements were conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including
26460-543: The singles format to albums and achieved cultural legitimacy in the mainstream. Led by the Beatles in the mid-1960s, rock musicians advanced the LP as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, initiating a rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. Progressive rock, a term sometimes used interchangeably with art rock , moved beyond established musical formulas by experimenting with different instruments, song types, and forms. From
26640-413: The skills of both guitarist Steve Howe and keyboard player Rick Wakeman , while Emerson, Lake & Palmer were a supergroup who produced some of the genre's most technically demanding work. Jethro Tull and Genesis both pursued very different, but distinctly English, brands of music. Renaissance , formed in 1969 by ex-Yardbirds Jim McCarty and Keith Relf, evolved into a high-concept band featuring
26820-466: The subgenre baggy . Madchester and baggy's most infamous moment was the 27 May 1990 Spike Island concert headlined by the Stone Roses. With an attendance of around 28,000 and lasting twelve hours, it was the first event of its size and kind to be hosted by an independent act. In Stourbridge , a scene of indie bands who took influence from electronic , punk, folk and hip-hop music emerged, dubbed grebo by critics. Fronted by Pop Will Eat Itself ,
27000-526: The term in many people's minds". Both bands made use of a Lo-fi production style which romanticised their D.I.Y. ethos. Pavement's 1992 album Slanted and Enchanted , was one of the defining albums of the slacker rock subgenre. Rolling Stone called the album "the quintessential indie rock album", placing it on the magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time . In the North Carolina Research Triangle , an indie rock scene
27180-661: The term indie to other forms of popular culture, led a number of commentators to suggest that indie rock had ceased to be a meaningful term. Additionally, a second wave of bands emerged in the United States that managed to gain international recognition as a result of the movement included the Black Keys , Kings of Leon , the Shins , the Bravery , Spoon , the Hold Steady , and the National . The most commercially successful band of this wave
27360-610: The three-octave voice of Annie Haslam . Most British bands depended on a relatively small cult following, but a handful, including Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Jethro Tull, managed to produce top ten singles at home and break the American market. The American brand of progressive rock varied from the eclectic and innovative Frank Zappa , Captain Beefheart and Blood, Sweat & Tears , to more pop rock orientated bands like Boston , Foreigner , Kansas , Journey , and Styx . These, beside British bands Supertramp and ELO , all demonstrated
27540-559: The underground. According to AllMusic , it was during this split that "indie rock" solidified itself as a term for the style of music played by these underground artists, while the mainstream indie rock-influenced bands became termed alternative rock. Slowcore developed in the United States as a direct counterpoint to the rapid growth of grunge. Although loosely defined, slowcore generally includes slow tempos, minimalist instrumentals and sad lyrics. Galaxie 500 , particularly their second album On Fire (1989), were heavy influences on
27720-409: The vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major subcultures including mods and rockers in the U.K., the hippie movement and the wider Western counterculture movement that spread out from San Francisco in the U.S. in the 1960s, the latter of which continues to this day. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the goth , punk, and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of
27900-418: The work of the Beach Boys , formed in 1961 in Southern California. Their early albums included both instrumental surf rock (among them covers of music by Dick Dale) and vocal songs, drawing on rock and roll and doo wop and the close harmonies of vocal pop acts like the Four Freshmen . The Beach Boys first chart hit, " Surfin ' " in 1961 reached the Billboard top 100 and helped make the surf music craze
28080-533: The work of established performers such as the Rolling Stones' Beggar's Banquet (1968) and the Beatles' Let It Be (1970). Reflecting on this change of trends in rock music over the past few years, Christgau wrote in his June 1970 "Consumer Guide" column that this "new orthodoxy" and "cultural lag" abandoned improvisatory, studio-ornamented productions in favor of an emphasis on "tight, spare instrumentation" and song composition: "Its referents are '50s rock, country music, and rhythm-and-blues, and its key inspiration
28260-404: The world, except as a new brand of painkiller ... In the '70s the powerful took over, as rock industrialists capitalized on the national mood to reduce potent music to an often reactionary species of entertainment—and to transmute rock's popular base from the audience to market." Roots rock is the term now used to describe a move away from what some saw as the excesses of the psychedelic scene, to
28440-462: Was John Mayall ; his band, the Bluesbreakers , included Eric Clapton (after Clapton's departure from the Yardbirds) and later Peter Green . Particularly significant was the release of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (Beano) album (1966), considered one of the seminal British blues recordings and the sound of which was much emulated in both Britain and the United States. Eric Clapton went on to form supergroups Cream, Blind Faith , and Derek and
28620-474: Was 1963's " Wipe Out ", by the Surfaris , which hit number 2 and number 10 on the Billboard charts in 1965. Surf rock was also popular in Europe during this time, with the British group the Shadows scoring hits in the early 1960s with instrumentals such as " Apache " (1960) and " Kon-Tiki " (1961), while Swedish surf group the Spotnicks saw success in both Sweden and Britain. Surf music achieved its greatest commercial success as vocal pop music, particularly
28800-401: Was Las Vegas' the Killers . Formed in 2001, after hearing Is This It , the band scrapped the majority of their prior material to rewrite it under the Strokes' influence. The band's debut single " Mr. Brightside " spent 260 non-consecutive weeks, or five years, on the UK Singles Chart as of April 2021, the most out of any song, and As of 2017 , it had charted on the UK Singles Chart in 11 of
28980-487: Was Sheffield's Arctic Monkeys . One of the earliest groups to owe their initial commercial success to the use of Internet social networking , the Arctic Monkeys had two No. 1 singles, and their album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006) became the fastest-selling debut album in British chart history. In this success, legacy indie bands soon entered the mainstream, including Modest Mouse (whose 2004 album Good News for People Who Love Bad News reached
29160-473: Was a major influence on subsequent rock-influenced jazz artists, including Herbie Hancock , Chick Corea and Weather Report . The genre began to fade in the late 1970s, as a mellower form of fusion began to take its audience, but acts like Steely Dan , Frank Zappa and Joni Mitchell recorded significant jazz-influenced albums in this period, and it has continued to be a major influence on rock music. Reflecting on developments that occurred in rock music in
29340-446: Was being spearheaded by groups enfranched Merge Records like Superchunk , Archers of Loaf and Polvo . describing a growing scene of indie-rock bands who were influenced by hardcore punk and post-punk. At the time, publications such as Entertainment Weekly took to calling the college town of Chapel Hill the "next Seattle". Superchunk's single " Slack Motherfucker " has also been credited by Columbia magazine with popularizing
29520-424: Was continued in the 1970s by figures such as George Thorogood and Pat Travers , but, particularly on the British scene (except perhaps for the advent of groups such as Status Quo and Foghat who moved towards a form of high energy and repetitive boogie rock ), bands became focused on heavy metal innovation, and blues rock began to slip out of the mainstream. By the 1960s, the scene that had developed out of
29700-449: Was founded in Britain), and Band of Gypsys , whose guitar virtuosity and showmanship would be among the most emulated of the decade. Blues rock bands from the southern states, like the Allman Brothers Band , Lynyrd Skynyrd , and ZZ Top , incorporated country elements into their style to produce the distinctive genre Southern rock . Early blues rock bands often emulated jazz, playing long, involved improvisations, which would later be
29880-457: Was further improved with the establishment of 'The Cartel', an association of companies like Red Rhino and Rough Trade Records who would take the releases from these small labels and get them into record shops nationwide. Independent record labels would also be integral to the early years of punk rock musical distribution, as seen with Beserkley Records in the US, who put out The Modern Lovers debut album, and Stiff Records who released
30060-407: Was nominated for the Mercury Prize . In 2002, Queen Katherine School students Hayden Thorpe and Ben Little, then both sixteen years of age, formed the duo Fauve, the French term for "wild beast", and began writing songs together. In January 2004, classmates Chris Talbot, son of the school's music teachers Robert and Lesley, and bassist Gareth Bullock joined as drummer and bassist respectively and
30240-406: Was pioneered by My Bloody Valentine on their early EPs and debut album Isn't Anything . The band's style influenced a wave of bands in London and the Thames Valley area including Chapterhouse , Moose and Lush . This scene was collectively termed "the Scene That Celebrates Itself" by Melody Maker's Steve Sutherland in 1990. Madchester was another style and scene that originated in
30420-524: Was released in August 2009 and was widely acclaimed; it featured in many end of year best albums lists for 2009. It was nominated for the 2010 Mercury Prize . Wild Beasts' third studio album, entitled Smother , was released in May 2011. The band subsequently announced the addition of touring band member Katie Harkin from Sky Larkin . They won the 2011 London Awards for Art and Performance . The band released their fourth studio album Present Tense on 24 February 2014. Their fifth studio album, Boy King
30600-575: Was released on 5 August 2016 also on Domino Records. On 25 September 2017, Wild Beasts announced their disbandment. An EP, Punk Drunk & Trembling , was released on 20 October 2017. They released a live album, titled Last Night All My Dreams Came True , on 16 February 2018. The band came to an end in February 2018, with three final shows featuring songs from each of their five albums. Both Thorpe and Fleming have since gone on to pursue solo projects. Thorpe released his solo debut Diviner in May 2019, whilst in July that year, Fleming reemerged under
30780-397: Was released on Bad Sneakers Records in April 2007, "Through Dark Night". In May 2007, music magazine NME listed Wild Beasts as one of ten bands "tipped for the top". Wild Beasts' debut album Limbo, Panto , described as "shocking, funny, and above all irrevocable", was released on 16 June 2008, with "The Devil's Crayon" single following on 30 June. The band's second album Two Dancers
30960-448: Was released on independent record labels, in addition to the record labels themselves. As the decade progressed many individual local scenes developed their own distinct takes on the genre: baggy in Manchester ; grebo in Stourbridge and Leicester ; and shoegaze in London and the Thames Valley . During the 1990s, the mainstream success of grunge and Britpop , two movements influenced by indie rock, brought increased attention to
31140-448: Was still "an indie rock standard bearer in the wider world of music". Arctic Monkeys' fifth album AM (2013) was one of the biggest indie rock albums of the decade, charting at number one on the UK Albums Chart , having sold 157,329 copies, thus becoming the second fastest-selling album of the year. With the debut of AM on the chart, Arctic Monkeys also broke a record, becoming the first independent-label band to debut at number one in
31320-411: Was taken up by bands including Pentangle , Steeleye Span and the Albion Band , which in turn prompted Irish groups like Horslips and Scottish acts like the JSD Band , Spencer's Feat and later Five Hand Reel , to use their traditional music to create a brand of Celtic rock in the early 1970s. Folk-rock reached its peak of commercial popularity in the period 1967–68, before many acts moved off in
31500-548: Was taking place globally in the aftermath of the Second World War . Cliff Richard is credited with one of the first rock and roll hits outside of North America with " Move It " (1959), effectively ushering in the sound of British rock . Several artists, most prominently Tommy Steele from the UK, found success with covers of major American rock and roll hits before the recordings could spread internationally, often translating them into local languages where appropriate. Steele in particular toured Britain, Scandinavia, Australia,
31680-458: Was the Midwest emo bands of the latter half of the decade, who incorporated the jangly guitar tones of earlier indie rock and elements of math rock to create the distinctive style of groups like American Football . The popularity of emo, also allowed a number of "not-quite-indie-not-quite-emo" bands like Death Cab For Cutie , Modest Mouse and Karate to gain significant attention. The loosely defined Elephant 6 collective – which included
31860-439: Was the first commercially successful folk song to be recorded with rock and roll instrumentation and the Beatles " I'm a Loser " (1964), arguably the first Beatles song to be influenced directly by Dylan. The folk rock movement is usually thought to have taken off with the Byrds ' recording of Dylan's " Mr. Tambourine Man " which topped the charts in 1965. With members who had been part of the café-based folk scene in Los Angeles,
32040-430: Was the major force in American record sales and crooners , such as Eddie Fisher , Perry Como , and Patti Page , who had dominated the previous decade of popular music, found their access to the pop charts significantly curtailed. Rock and roll has been seen as leading to a number of distinct subgenres, including rockabilly, combining rock and roll with "hillbilly" country music, which was usually played and recorded in
32220-400: Was the most popular genre of music in the U.S. and much of the Western world from the 1950s to the 2010s. Rock musicians in the mid-1960s began to advance the album ahead of the single as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, with the Beatles at the forefront of this development. Their contributions lent the genre a cultural legitimacy in the mainstream and initiated
32400-435: Was then exacerbated by the success of the Arctic Monkeys. In the years following Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not there was a proliferation of bands such as the Rifles , the Pigeon Detectives and Milburn , who created a more formulaic derivative of the earlier acts. By the end of the decade, critics had taken to referring to this wave of acts as "landfill indie", a description coined by Andrew Harrison of
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