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A CRASH COURSE ON EXISTING MUSIC GENRES

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Part III :: Rock

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Published in PRESS Magazine

April 2004

So you made it past the intro courses on pop, new wave, indie, alternative and reggae. You’re practically an expert and can now speak with confidence and intelligence about the different styles of music. But wait, it’s not over yet. In fact, you’ve barely even begun. Yes, the world of music is a vast, complex playground of many different genres, sub-genres and sub-sub-genres and each must be addressed with equal attention to detail and example. This month PRESS thinks its readers are ready for the big Kahuna: Rock & Roll. That fun, freewheeling, sometimes angry but always exhilarating art form that’s spawned the great icons of our time. So turn up the volume and grit your teeth class, because today’s lesson rocks.

ROCK

CLASSIC ROCK

Classic Rock, although loosely defined, generally includes the music from rock bands formed between 1960 and 1990. The music is done usually by bands that include a guitar player, a bass player, a drummer, and usually a keyboardist. Concept Albums are a major part of classic rock, and among the prime examples are probably the 4 Pink Floyd concept albums and The Beatles famed Sgt. Pepper Lonely Heart Club (believed to be the first concept album). The Rolling Stones, The Who and Genesis are also considered major classic rock bands.

EMO

Deriving its name from the word "emotional," the phrase Emo was first employed during the mid-'80s to describe music that was originally an extension of hardcore punk with a brand of visceral yet complex guitar music driven by pendulum-esque dynamics and often deeply personal and sensitive lyrics coupled with a focus on expressive vocals. The music is epitomized by post-Grunge, edgy rock with explosive energy mixed with emotional lyrics about sadness, love and even anger, which are common lyrical themes. Among the first Emo bands to emerge in the mid- 80s were Embrace, Rites Of Spring and later Fugazi, and Sunny Day Real Estate in the mid-90s after the hype of Grunge died down. Now a hybrid of Indie Rock and Hardcore Punk, Emo is presently one of the most widespread and hottest genres around. And while it's moved far away from it's Hardcore beginnings, it still has it's independent spirit intact though major record labels have taken notice and released albums by Jimmy Eat World, At The Drive-In and Weezer just to name a few.

ELECTRO-INDUSTRIAL

Electro-Industrial artists are conspicuous by their general refrain to use the thrash guitars that dominated industrial crossover bands like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry. Groups including Cubanate, Haujobb, Kill Switch...Klick, and Mentallo & the Fixer focus more on the experimental and electronic edge of industrial music, emphasizing the influence of pioneering industrial bands like Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, and Front 242, instead of the tired Black Sabbath-fests displayed on many "industrial" albums.

FUNK METAL

Funk Metal takes the loud guitars and riffs of heavy metal and melds them to the popping bass lines and syncopated rhythms of funk. A genre that became a way to showcase instrumental prowess, Funk Metal evolved in the mid-'80s when alternative bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Fishbone began playing the hybrid with a stronger funk underpinning than metal. The bands that followed, however, relied more on metal than funk, though they retained the wild bass lines. Faith No More, Primus, Mr. Bungle, Buckethead, and 311 are some of today’s hottest funk bands.

GRUNGE

Grunge is heavy, murky sounding Modern Rock. Artists were raised on the heavy sounds of 70s Metal bands like Black Sabbath or even Foghat, but also heavily influenced by Punk Rock, making them edgier sounding.

GOTHIC ROCK A.K.A DEATHROCK COFFINROCK

Gothic Rock grew out the bleak, post-punk rock of the Cure and Joy Division in the late 70s and early 80s. As the name implies, Goth Rock had grand, baroque arrangements performed with gloomy synthesizers and processed guitars, giving way to music that consists of dark imagery and cold, sinister and/or sorrowful sounds as they fused romanticism, religion and existentialism as well as cryptic and morbid poetry in their lyrics. As remarkable as its sound was the Goth image where both the bands and the fans usually dressed in black, wore heavy makeup and vampirish looks. Primarily a mid-'80s British sensation that was among the genres that occupied the space between new wave and alternative, certain musical elements of goth lingered into the '90s, though it failed to capture the imagination of alternative audiences like it did before. Some great Gothic Rock bands include Bauhaus, The Damned, The Cure, Love and Rockets, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Tones on Tail, Alien Sex Fiend, The Sisters of Mercy, Die Krupps, 45 Grave, The Southern Death Cult, The Misfits, Sisters Of Mercy, and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

PUNK

Punk Rock returned rock & roll to the basics -- three chords and a simple melody. It just did it louder and faster and more abrasively than any other rock & roll in the past as it incorporated heavy, raw and distorted guitars; intricate, deep sounding bass lines; high paced, pounding drum beats; and vocals that catapult ideologies of a world run by anarchy. A form of underground music which appeals to people who are either bored with normalcy and commercialism or dissatisfied with the way the world works, Punk Rock is one of the most important developments in pop culture and alternative music as it took music out of the hands of the Classic Rock supergroups of the 70s and gave it back to the common man with lyrics that usually focused on politics or personal alienation. Throughout the '80s, thanks to the Sex Pistols, punk was identified with the hardcore scenes in both America and England. In the early '90s, a wave of punk revivalists -- led by Green Day and Rancid -- emerged from the American underground. The new wave of punk rockers followed the same template as the original punks, but they tended to incorporate elements of heavy metal into their sound.

SHOEGAZER

Named for the stage persona of its key artists where musicians would stand motionless on stage staring down at their shoes (or more likely, their guitars), Shoegazer music is characterized by the deafeningly loud "wall of sound" guitars mixed with heavy atmospherics, virtually indistinguishable instruments that would blend together and buried vocals. 1985 saw the release of the highly influential album Psychocandy by The Jesus and Mary Chain. Waves of relentless, distortion drenched feedback, while maintaining underlying pop sensibilities, was a formula that would prove to be essential to a new generation of bands. While Shoegazer had it's heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it continues to flourish in a more underground manner as the tradition is carried on, mostly by American bands like; Swirlies, Bethany Curve, Lovesliescrushing, Ariel Love Feed, A Northern Chorus

SOFT ROCK

Emerging in the early '70s, partially as a reaction to the extreme sounds of the late '60s, Soft rock was commercial and inoffensive, taking the sound of singer/songwriter and pop/rock but smoothing out all the edges. Dominating the airwaves throughout the 70s, bands like Bread, the Carpenters, and Chicago relied on simple, melodic songs with big, lush productions. Eventually, soft rock metamorphosed into the synthesized sounds of adult contemporary in the '80s. Some excellent soft rock artists include Sergio Mendes, The Bee Gees, Carole King, Linda Ronstadt, Paul Simon, Andy Williams, Stevie Nicks, Paul McCartney, Bette Midler and Van Morrison among many others.

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