Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the blues and rhythm and blues genres of African-American music and from country music. Rock music also drew strongly from a number of other genres such as electric blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical, and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock has centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass, drums, and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a 4
4 time signature using a verse–chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political.
X-Ray Spex were an English punk rock band formed in 1976 from London.
Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produced and was initially used interchangeably with alternative rock or "guitar pop rock". In the 1980s, the use of the term "indie" started to shift from its reference to recording companies to describe the style of music produced on punk and post-punk labels. During the 1990s, grunge and punk revival bands in the US and Britpop bands in the UK broke into the mainstream, and the term "alternative" lost its original counter-cultural meaning. The term "indie rock" became associated with the bands and genres that remained dedicated to their independent status. By the end of the 1990s, indie rock developed several subgenres and related styles, including lo-fi, noise pop, emo, slowcore, post-rock, and math rock. In the 2000s, changes in the music industry and the growing importance of the internet enabled a new wave of indie rock bands to achieve mainstream success, leading to questions about its meaningfulness as a term.
David Albert Alvin is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer. He is a former and founding member of the roots rock band the Blasters. Alvin has recorded and performed as a solo artist since the late 1980s and has been involved in various side projects and collaborations. He has had brief stints as a member of the bands X and the Knitters.
British folk rock is a form of folk rock which developed in the United Kingdom from the mid 1960s, and was at its most significant in the 1970s. Though the merging of folk and rock music came from several sources, it is widely regarded that the success of "The House of the Rising Sun" by British band the Animals in 1964 was a catalyst, prompting Bob Dylan to "go electric", in which, like the Animals, he brought folk and rock music together, from which other musicians followed. In the same year, the Beatles began incorporating overt folk influences into their music, most noticeably on their Beatles for Sale album. The Beatles and other British Invasion bands, in turn, influenced the American band the Byrds, who released their recording of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" in April 1965, setting off the mid-1960s American folk rock movement. A number of British groups, usually those associated with the British folk revival, moved into folk rock in the mid-1960s, including the Strawbs, Pentangle, and Fairport Convention.
Psychedelic folk is a loosely defined form of psychedelia that originated in the 1960s. It retains the largely acoustic instrumentation of folk, but adds musical elements common to psychedelic music.
Folk punk is a fusion of folk music and punk rock. It was popularized in the early 1980s by the Pogues in England, and by Violent Femmes in the United States. Folk punk achieved some mainstream success in that decade. In more recent years, its subgenres Celtic punk and Gypsy punk have experienced some commercial success.
Germfree Adolescents is the debut album of English punk rock band X-Ray Spex. It contained the UK hit singles "The Day the World Turned Dayglo", "Identity" and "Germ Free Adolescents" which reached No. 18 in November 1978. Upon release, the critics noted it wasn't all new material: five songs on the twelve tracks had already been released on A Sides and B sides of singles.
Marianne Joan Elliott-Said, known by the stage name Poly Styrene, was an English musician, singer-songwriter, and frontwoman for the punk rock band X-Ray Spex.
Mare Vitalis is the second full-length album by Lawrence, Kansas-based emo group The Appleseed Cast. It was released on Deep Elm Records in 2000.
Anodyne is the fourth and final studio album by alternative country band Uncle Tupelo, released on October 5, 1993. The recording of the album was preceded by the departure of the original drummer Mike Heidorn and the addition of three new band members: bassist John Stirratt, drummer Ken Coomer, and multi-instrumentalist Max Johnston. The band signed with Sire Records shortly before recording the album; Anodyne was Uncle Tupelo's only major label release until 89/93: An Anthology in 2002.
Comet Gain are a British indie pop band, formed by singer-songwriter and guitarist David Feck in 1992, with musical influences including post-punk and northern soul.
"The Ghost of Tom Joad" is a folk rock song written by Bruce Springsteen. It is the title track to his eleventh studio album, released in 1995. The character Tom Joad, from John Steinbeck's classic 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath, is mentioned in the title and narrative. Originally a quiet folk song, "The Ghost of Tom Joad" has also been recorded by Rage Against the Machine and Junip. Springsteen himself has performed the song in a variety of arrangements, including with the E Street Band, and a live recording featuring Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello as guest. In 2013, Springsteen re-recorded the track with Tom Morello for his eighteenth studio album, High Hopes (2014).
The Burns Sisters are an American folk music group from Ithaca, New York. The group has performed and recorded with various siblings, most recently consisting of sisters Marie and Annie. They have toured with Arlo Guthrie providing backup vocals and occasionally performing as his opening act.
Laura Risk is a California-born violinist. She specializes in performing and teaching the diverse fiddle repertoire of Scotland and Quebec.
Tim Eriksen is an American musician, musicologist, and professor. He is the leader of the band Cordelia's Dad, a solo artist, and was a performer and consultant for the award-winning soundtrack of the film Cold Mountain.
Meg Baird is an American musician based in San Francisco, California, United States, who, in addition to her solo career, is known as a founding member, lead vocalist, and drummer for Heron Oblivion, along with members from Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound and Comets on Fire. She was also a guitarist and the lead female vocalist in Philadelphia psychedelic folk rock band Espers, and played drums in Philadelphia punk band Watery Love. Baird frequently collaborates with the Los Angeles-based harpist Mary Lattimore.
Casey Neill is an American musician. He leads Portland, Oregon-based band Casey Neill & The Norway Rats, singing with a raspy vocal quality and playing electric and acoustic guitars. Neill's style, folk-punk, mixes influences from punk, Celtic and folk music, and has been compared to R.E.M. and The Pogues.
OKra Records was a Columbus, Ohio-based independent record label established in the late 1980s. It was founded by Dan Dow, the former guitarist for the Gibson Bros. and the former owner of Used Kids Records, which he “co-founded” with Ron House in 1986. According to Cordelia's Dad drummer Peter Irvine, OKra was run almost entirely by Dow himself. The label stopped putting out records in 1993.
Bet the Sky is an album by the American indie rock band Lois, released in 1995.
