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Hard rock or heavy rock[1] is a heavier subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted
electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some
of the earliest hard rock music was produced by the Kinks, the Who, the Rolling Stones, Cream, Vanilla Fudge,
and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In the late 1960s, bands such as Blue Cheer, the Jeff Beck Group, Iron
Butterfly, Led Zeppelin, Golden Earring, Steppenwolf, and Deep Purple also produced hard rock.

The genre developed into a major form of popular music in the 1970s, with the Who, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple
being joined by Black Sabbath, Aerosmith, Kiss, Queen, AC/DC, Thin Lizzy and Van Halen. During the 1980s, some
hard rock bands moved away from their hard rock roots and more towards pop rock.[2][3] Established bands made a
comeback in the mid-1980s and hard rock reached a commercial peak in the 1980s with glam metal bands such as
Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi and Def Leppard as well as the rawer sounds of Guns N' Roses which followed with great
success in the later part of that decade.

Hard rock began losing popularity with the commercial success of R&B, hip-hop, urban pop, grunge and later
Britpop in the 1990s. Despite this, many post-grunge bands adopted a hard rock sound and the 2000s saw a
renewed interest in established bands, attempts at a revival, and new hard rock bands that emerged from the
garage rock and post-punk revival scenes. Out of this movement came garage rock bands like the White Stripes,
the Strokes, Interpol and later the Black Keys. In the 2000s, only a few hard rock bands from the 1970s and
1980s managed to sustain highly successful recording careers.

Definitions

Drum notation for a backbeat[4]

Hard rock is a form of loud, aggressive rock music. The electric guitar is often emphasised, used with
distortion and other effects, both as a rhythm instrument using repetitive riffs with a varying degree of
complexity, and as a solo lead instrument.[5] Drumming characteristically focuses on driving rhythms, strong
bass drum and a backbeat on snare, sometimes using cymbals for emphasis.[6] The bass guitar works in
conjunction with the drums, occasionally playing riffs, but usually providing a backing for the rhythm and lead
guitars.[7] Vocals are often growling, raspy, or involve screaming or wailing, sometimes in a high range, or
even falsetto voice.[8]

In the late-1960s, the term heavy metal was used interchangeably with hard rock, but gradually began to be used
to describe music played with even more volume and intensity.[9] While hard rock maintained a bluesy rock and
roll identity, including some swing in the back beat and riffs that tended to outline chord progressions in
their hooks, heavy metal's riffs often functioned as stand-alone melodies and had no swing in them.[5] In the
1980s, heavy metal developed a number of subgenres, often termed extreme metal, some of which were influenced
by hardcore punk, and which further differentiated the two styles.[7] Despite this differentiation, hard rock
and heavy metal have existed side by side, with bands frequently standing on the boundary of, or crossing
between, the genres.[10]

History
The roots of hard rock can be traced back to the mid- to late-1950s, particularly electric blues,[11][12] which
laid the foundations for key elements such as a rough declamatory vocal style, heavy guitar riffs, string-
bending blues-scale guitar solos, strong beat, thick riff-laden texture, and posturing performances.[11]
Electric blues guitarists began experimenting with hard rock elements such as driving rhythms, distorted guitar
solos and power chords in the 1950s, evident in the work of Memphis blues guitarists such as Joe Hill Louis,
Willie Johnson, and particularly Pat Hare,[13][14] who captured a "grittier, nastier, more ferocious electric
guitar sound" on records such as James Cotton's "Cotton Crop Blues" (1954).[14] Other antecedents include Link
Wray's instrumental "Rumble" in 1958,[15] and the surf rock instrumentals of Dick Dale, such as "Let's Go
Trippin'" (1961) and "Misirlou" (1962).

Origins (1960s)

Baker, Bruce and Clapton of Cream, whose blues rock improvisation was a major factor in the development of the
genre
In the 1960s, American and British blues and rock bands began to modify rock and roll by adding harder sounds,
heavier guitar riffs, bombastic drumming, and louder vocals, from electric blues.[11] Early forms of hard rock
can be heard in the work of Chicago blues musicians Elmore James, Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf,[16] the
Kingsmen's version of "Louie Louie" (1963) which made it a garage rock standard,[17] and the songs of rhythm
and blues influenced British Invasion acts,[18] including "You Really Got Me" by the Kinks (1964),[19] "My
Generation" by the Who (1965)[5] and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (1965) by the Rolling Stones.[20] Soft
rock was often derived from folk rock, using acoustic instruments and putting more emphasis on melody and
harmonies.[21] In contrast, hard rock was most often derived from blues rock and was played louder and with
more intensity.[5]

Blues rock acts that pioneered the sound included Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and the Jeff Beck Group.
[5] Cream, in songs like "I Feel Free" (1966), combined blues rock with pop and psychedelia, particularly in
the riffs and guitar solos of Eric Clapton.[22] Cream's best known-song, "Sunshine of Your Love" (1967), is
sometimes considered to be the culmination of the British adaptation of blues into rock and a direct precursor
of Led Zeppelin's style of hard rock and heavy metal.[23] Jimi Hendrix produced a form of blues-influenced
psychedelic rock, which combined elements of jazz, blues and rock and roll.[24] From 1967, Jeff Beck brought
lead guitar to new heights of technical virtuosity and moved blues rock in the direction of heavy rock with his
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band, the Jeff Beck Group.[25] Dave Davies of the Kinks, Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Pete Townshend
of the Who, Hendrix, Clapton and Beck all pioneered the use of new guitar effects like phasing, feedback and
distortion.[26] The Doors' debut album, released in 1967, included songs like "Soul Kitchen", "Twentieth
Century Fox", and a cover version of "Back Door Man", which were what music journalist Stephen Davis
characterized as "enough hard rock tracks".[27] The Beatles began producing songs in the new hard rock style
beginning with their 1968 double album The Beatles (also known as the "White Album") and, with the track
"Helter Skelter", attempted to create a greater level of noise than the Who.[28] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of
AllMusic has referred to the "proto-metal roar" of "Helter Skelter",[29] while Ian MacDonald called it
"ridiculous, with McCartney shrieking weedily against a massively tape-echoed backdrop of out-of-tune
thrashing".[28]

Led Zeppelin live at Chicago Stadium, January 1975

Groups that emerged from the American psychedelic scene about the same time included Iron Butterfly, MC5, Blue
Cheer and Vanilla Fudge.[30] San Francisco band Blue Cheer released a crude and distorted cover of Eddie
Cochran's classic "Summertime Blues", from their 1968 debut album Vincebus Eruptum, that outlined much of the
later hard rock and heavy metal sound.[30] The same month, Steppenwolf released its self-titled debut album,
including "Born to Be Wild", which contained the first lyrical reference to heavy metal and helped popularise
the style when it was used in the film Easy Rider (1969).[30] Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968), with
its 17-minute-long title track, using organs and with a lengthy drum solo, also prefigured later elements of
the sound.[30]