Rock 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 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 is typically 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
4 time signature and utilizing 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 was the most popular genre of music in the U.S. and much of the Western world from the 1950s to the 2010s.
Emo is a music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of hardcore punk and post-hardcore from the mid-1980s Washington, D.C. hardcore scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore. The bands Rites of Spring and Embrace, among others, pioneered the genre. In the early-to-mid 1990s, emo was adopted and reinvented by alternative rock, indie rock, punk rock, and pop-punk bands, including Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker, Cap'n Jazz, and Jimmy Eat World. By the mid-1990s, Braid, the Promise Ring, and the Get Up Kids emerged from Midwest emo, and several independent record labels began to specialize in the genre. Meanwhile, screamo, a more aggressive style of emo using screamed vocals, also emerged, pioneered by the San Diego bands Heroin and Antioch Arrow. Screamo achieved mainstream success in the 2000s with bands like Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, Story of the Year, Thursday, the Used, and Underoath.
Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in 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.
Alternative rock is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s with the likes of the grunge subgenre in the United States, and the Britpop and shoegaze subgenres in the United Kingdom and Ireland. During this period, many record labels were looking for "alternatives", as many corporate rock, hard rock, and glam metal acts from the 1980s were beginning to grow stale throughout the music industry. The emergence of Generation X as a cultural force in the 1990s also contributed greatly to the rise of alternative rock.
Pop-punk is a rock music fusion genre that combines elements of punk rock with power pop or pop. It is defined by its fast-paced, energetic tempos, and emphasis on classic pop songcraft, as well as adolescent and anti-suburbia themes. It is distinguished from other punk-variant genres by drawing more heavily from 1960s bands such as the Beatles, the Kinks, and the Beach Boys. The genre has evolved throughout its history, absorbing elements from new wave, college rock, ska, hip hop, emo, boy band pop and even hardcore punk and metalcore. It is sometimes considered interchangeable with power pop and skate punk.
College rock is rock music that played on student-run university and college campus radio stations located in the United States and Canada in the 1980s and 1990s. The stations' playlists were often created by students who avoided the mainstream rock played on commercial radio stations.
K Records is an independent record label in Olympia, Washington, founded in 1982. Artists on the label included early releases by Beck, Modest Mouse and Built to Spill. The record label has been called "key to the development of independent music" since the 1980s.
Australian indie rock is part of the overall flow of Australian rock history but has a distinct history somewhat separate from mainstream rock in Australia, largely from the end of the punk rock era onwards.
Screamo is a subgenre of emo that emerged in the early 1990s and emphasizes "willfully experimental dissonance and dynamics". San Diego–based bands Heroin and Antioch Arrow pioneered the genre in the early 1990s, and it was developed in the late 1990s mainly by bands from the East Coast of the United States such as Pg. 99, Orchid, Saetia, and I Hate Myself. Screamo is strongly influenced by hardcore punk and characterized by the use of screamed vocals. Lyrical themes usually include emotional pain, death, romance, and human rights. The term "screamo" has frequently been mistaken as referring to any music with screaming.
British rock describes a wide variety of forms of music made in the United Kingdom. Since around 1964, with the "British Invasion" of the United States spearheaded by the Beatles, British rock music has had a considerable impact on the development of American music and rock music across the world.
Indie pop is a subgenre of alternative rock and subculture that combines guitar pop with DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and subsequently generated a thriving fanzine, label, and club and gig circuit. Compared to its counterpart, indie rock, the genre is more melodic, less abrasive, and relatively angst-free. In later years, the definition of indie pop has bifurcated to also mean bands from unrelated DIY scenes/movements with pop leanings. Subgenres include chamber pop and twee pop.
Independent music is a broad style of music characterized by creative freedoms, low-budgets, and a do-it-yourself approach to music creation, which originated from the liberties afforded by independent record labels. Indie music describes a number of related styles, but generally describes guitar-oriented music straying away from mainstream conventions. There are a number of subgenres of independent music which combine its characteristics with other genres, such as indie pop, indie rock, indie folk, and indie electronic.
Popular music of the United Kingdom in the 1990s continued to develop and diversify. While the singles charts were dominated by boy bands and girl groups, British soul and Indian-based music also enjoyed their greatest level of mainstream success to date, and the rise of World music helped revitalise the popularity of folk music. Electronic rock bands like The Prodigy and Chemical Brothers began to achieve a high profile. Alternative rock reached the mainstream, emerging from the Madchester scene to produce dream pop, shoegazing, post rock and indie pop, which led to the commercial success of Britpop bands like Blur and Oasis; followed by a stream of post-Britpop bands like Radiohead and The Verve.
Post-punk revival is a genre or movement of indie rock that emerged in the early 2000s as musicians started to play a stripped down and back-to-basics version of guitar rock inspired by the original sounds and aesthetics of post-punk, new wave and garage rock. It is closely associated with new wave revival and garage rock revival.
Lo-fi is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections in the context of a recording or performance are present, sometimes as a deliberate stylistic choice. The standards of sound quality (fidelity) and music production have evolved over the decades, meaning that some older examples of lo-fi may not have been originally recognized as such. Lo-fi began to be recognized as a style of popular music in the 1990s, when it became alternately referred to as DIY music. Some subsets of lo-fi music have become popular for their perceived nostalgic and/or relaxing qualities, which originate from the imperfections that define the genre.
An independent music scene is a localized independent music-oriented community of bands and their audiences. Local scenes can play a key role in musical history and lead to the development of influential genres; for example, no wave from New York City, United States; Madchester from Manchester, England; and grunge from Seattle.
Tullycraft is an American indie pop band from Seattle, Washington, that formed in 1995. They have been associated with the genre of twee pop; in fact, they are considered to be one of the true pioneers of the American twee pop movement. They are known for their DIY ethic, only releasing albums on independently owned and operated record labels.
Tiger Trap is the first and only studio album by the American pop band Tiger Trap, released in 1993 through K Records. It was produced by Calvin Johnson. With about 10,000 copies sold, it was K Records' best-selling album until they released Beck's One Foot in the Grave the following year.
British pop music is popular music, produced commercially in the United Kingdom. It emerged in the mid-to late 1950s as a softer alternative to American rock 'n' roll. Like American pop music it has a focus on commercial recording, often orientated towards a youth market, as well as that of the Singles Chart usually through the medium of relatively short and simple love songs. While these basic elements of the genre have remained fairly constant, pop music has absorbed influences from most other forms of popular music, particularly borrowing from the development of rock music, and utilising key technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes. From the British Invasion in the 1960s, led by The Beatles, British pop music has alternated between acts and genres with national appeal and those with international success that have had a considerable impact on the development of the wider genre and on popular music in general
"Freak Scene" is a song by American alternative rock band Dinosaur Jr., the opening track on the group's third studio album Bug (1988). Written and produced by frontman J Mascis, the song was recorded at Fort Apache Studios by engineers Paul Q. Kolderie and Sean Slade. "Freak Scene" was released as a single on SST Records in the United States and was also Dinosaur Jr.'s first release on Blast First in the United Kingdom. The band also made a music video to promote the single.
