Robert James Ritchie, better known as Kid Rock and occasionally Bobby Shazam, is an American singer, songwriter, rapper, musician, and record producer. His style alternates between rock, hip hop, country, and heavy metal. A self-taught musician, he plays every instrument in his backing band and has overseen production on all but two of his albums.
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group consisted of vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. With their heavy, guitar-driven sound, they are regularly cited as one of the progenitors of heavy metal, although their style drew from a variety of influences, including blues and folk music. The band have been credited with significantly impacting the nature of the music industry, particularly in the development of album-orientated rock (AOR) and stadium rock. Many critics consider Led Zeppelin one of the most successful, innovative and influential rock groups in history.
Nirvana was an American rock band formed in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1987. Founded by lead singer-songwriter and guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic, the band went through a succession of drummers before recruiting Dave Grohl in 1990. Nirvana's success popularized alternative rock, and they were often referenced as the figurehead band of Generation X. Their music maintains a popular following and continues to influence modern rock and roll culture.
Pop is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms popular music and pop music are often used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular and includes many disparate styles. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop encompassed rock and roll and the youth-oriented styles it influenced. Rock and pop remained roughly synonymous until the late 1960s, after which pop became associated with music that was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible.
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from musical styles such as gospel, jump blues, jazz, boogie woogie, rhythm and blues, and country music. While rock and roll's formative elements can be heard in blues records from the 1920s, and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until 1954.
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 heavily from the genres of blues, rhythm and blues, 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.
Rush was a Canadian rock band formed in Toronto in 1968, consisting of Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart. After its formation in 1968, the band went through several configurations until arriving at its classic lineup with the addition of Peart in 1974, just after the release of their eponymous debut album, which contained their first highly-regarded song, "Working Man".
"Bohemian Rhapsody" is a song by the British rock band Queen. It was written by Freddie Mercury for the band's 1975 album A Night at the Opera. The song is a six-minute suite, notable for its lack of a refraining chorus and consisting of several sections: an intro, a ballad segment, an operatic passage, a hard rock part and a reflective coda. "Bohemian Rhapsody" is one of the few songs to emerge from the 1970s progressive rock movement to achieve widespread commercial success and appeal to a mainstream audience.
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1970. Their classic line-up was Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon (bass). Their earliest works were influenced by progressive rock, hard rock and heavy metal, but the band gradually ventured into more conventional and radio-friendly works by incorporating further styles, such as arena rock and pop rock.
Charles Edward Anderson Berry was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. Nicknamed the "Father of Rock and Roll", Berry refined and developed rhythm and blues into the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive with songs such as "Maybellene" (1955), "Roll Over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958). Writing lyrics that focused on teen life and consumerism, and developing a music style that included guitar solos and showmanship, Berry was a major influence on subsequent rock music.
The Eagles are an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1971. With five number-one singles and six number-one albums, six Grammy Awards, and five American Music Awards, the Eagles were one of the most successful musical acts of the 1970s in North America. Founding members Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner, were recruited by Linda Ronstadt as band members, some touring with her, and all playing on her third solo album, before venturing out on their own on David Geffen's new Asylum Records label.
AC/DC are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1973 by Scottish-born brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. Although their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock, and heavy metal, the band themselves call it simply "rock and roll".
Alternative rock is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commercial rock or pop music. The term's original meaning was broader, referring to a generation of musicians unified by their collective debt to either the musical style or simply the independent, DIY ethos of punk rock, which in the late 1970s laid the groundwork for alternative music.
Folk rock is a hybrid music genre combining elements of folk music and rock music, which arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music revival and the influence that the Beatles and other British Invasion bands had on members of that movement. Performers such as Bob Dylan and the Byrds—several of whose members had earlier played in folk ensembles—attempted to blend the sounds of rock with their pre-existing folk repertoire, adopting the use of electric instrumentation and drums in a way previously discouraged in the U.S. folk community. The term "folk rock" was initially used in the U.S. music press in June 1965 to describe the Byrds' music.
Soft rock is a derivative form of pop rock that originated in the late 1960s in the U.S. region of Southern California and in the United Kingdom. The style smoothed over the edges of singer-songwriter and pop rock, relying on simple, melodic songs with big, lush productions. Soft rock was prevalent on the radio throughout the 1970s and eventually metamorphosed into a form of the synthesized music of adult contemporary in the 1980s.
Blues rock is a fusion genre combining elements of blues and rock. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electric blues and rock: electric guitar, electric bass guitar, and drums, sometimes with keyboards and harmonica. From its beginnings in the early to mid-1960s, blues rock has gone through several stylistic shifts and along the way it inspired and influenced hard rock, Southern rock, and early heavy metal. Blues rock continues to be an influence in the 2020s, with performances and recordings by popular artists.
Alternative Airplay is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It ranks the 40 most-played songs on alternative and modern rock radio stations. Introduced as Modern Rock Tracks, the chart served as a companion to the Mainstream Rock chart, and its creation was prompted by the explosion of alternative music on American radio in the late 1980s. During the first several years of the chart, it regularly featured music that did not receive commercial radio airplay anywhere but on a few modern rock and college rock radio stations. This included many electronic and post-punk artists. Gradually, as alternative rock became more mainstream, alternative and mainstream rock radio stations began playing many of the same songs. By late in the first decade of the 2000s, the genres became more fully differentiated with only limited crossover. The Alternative Airplay chart features more indie rock, indie pop, and synth-pop artists while the Mainstream Rock chart leans towards more guitar-tinged alternative rock, hard rock, and heavy metal.
Mainstream Rock is a music chart in Billboard magazine that ranks the most-played songs on mainstream rock radio stations in the United States, a category that combines the formats of active rock and heritage rock. The chart was launched in March 1981, as Rock Albums and Top Tracks, after which the name changed first to Top Rock Tracks, then to Album Rock Tracks, and finally to its present title in 1996.
"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" was the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone, issue number 963, published in December 2004, a year after the magazine published its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". The list was subsequently updated in 2010.
Hot Rock & Alternative Songs is a record chart published by Billboard magazine. From its debut on June 20, 2009, through October 13, 2012, the chart ranked the airplay of songs across alternative, mainstream rock, and triple A radio stations in the United States. Beginning with the chart dated October 20, 2012, the chart has followed the methodology of the Billboard Hot 100 by incorporating digital download sales, streaming data, and radio airplay of rock songs over all formats. From that time until mid-2020, only the performance of core rock songs, including those with an "alternative bent", were tabulated and ranked for the chart. With the chart dated June 13, 2020, Billboard revamped the chart to permit a broader selection of songs considered alternative "hybrids" with other genres and renamed it to Hot Rock & Alternative Songs.
