Hard Rock

In 1980, led Zeppelin disbanded after the sudden death of drummer John Bonham.  Bon Scott, the lead singer of AC/DC, also died in 1980. With these deaths, the first wave of "classic" hard rock bands ended.  Some bands, such as Queen, moved away from their hard rock roots and more towards pop rock.

AC/DC recorded the album Back in Black, with their new lead singer, Brian Johnson. Back in Black is the fifth highest-selling album of all time in the U.S and the second largest selling album in the world.

After leaving Black Sabbath in 1979, Ozzy Osbourne resumed a solo career under the management of his soon-to-be wife, Sharon Arden.  He released his first solo album, Blizzard of Ozz, which featured American guitarist Randy Rhoads.

Rhoads, a highly acclaimed heavy metal guitarist, was killed in a light-plane accident in March, 1982, in Florida, as the band were on tour promoting Osbourne's follow-up album, Diary of a Madman.  Rhoads was eventually replaced by guitarist, Brad Gillis.

In 1981, the U.S. band, Mötley Crüe, (right) released Too Fast for Love, which started an interest in the glam metal style. A year later, the style grew, led by bands such as Twisted Sister and Quiet Riot.

Also in 1983, Def Leppard, an English hard rock band, released the album Pyromania, which reached #2 on the American charts. Their music was a mix of glam rock and heavy metal which influenced many 1980s hard rock and glam rock bands.

The same year, Mötley Crüe released the album, Shout at the Devil, which became a huge hit. Van Halen's (left) album 1984 became a huge success as well, hitting #2 on the Billboard album charts. In particular, the song "Jump" reached #1 on the singles chart (where it remained for several weeks) and is considered one of the most popular rock songs ever written.

However, 1984 was also their first to include the constant and repetitive use of keyboards and synthesizers, marking a shift away from their original guitar-orientated style. It must be noted however, that the synthesizer was only used on two songs (Jump and I'll Wait), as well as the short title track 1984.

The future five albums (albeit with different lead singers) would see 2-6 songs including keyboards, while still keeping the same keen focus on their legendary guitar.

The late 1980s saw the most commercially successful time period for hard rock. Numerous hard rock acts achieved hits in the mainstream charts. One of those hits was the album Slippery When Wet (1986) by Bon Jovi (above right), which spent a total of 8 weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 album chart and became the first hard rock album to spawn three Top 10 singles, two of which reached #1.

In addition, the popular song The Final Countdown by Swedish rock group Europe was released in 1986 and reached #1 on 26 countries' charts. In 1987, the most notable successes in the charts were, Appetite for Destruction by Guns N' Roses, and Hysteria by Def Leppard (both of which reached #1 on Billboard's album chart), Mötley Crüe's Girls, Girls, Girls and Whitesnake's self-titled album. In 1988 and 1989, the most notable successes were New Jersey by Bon Jovi, Pump by Aerosmith, and Dr. Feelgood by Mötley Crüe. New Jersey spawned five Top 10 singles, the most ever for a hard rock album.

Dinosaur Jr and Sonic Youth achieved underground success in the U.S., and would later reach the mainstream in the 1990s. In 1988, Skid Row formed. Their first album, Skid Row, was released in 1989, reaching number 6 in the Billboard 200.

Third era (1990s-present)  [ top ]

The early 1990s were at first dominated by Guns N' Roses (left), Metallica and Van Halen. The multi-platinum releases of Metallica's Metallica (often referred to as "The Black Album"), Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II and Van Halen's For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge in 1991 showcased this popularity.  But the popularity of such bands waned as their music and attitudes became more decadent and self-indulgent.

Grunge [ top ]

In 1991 a new form of hard rock broke into the mainstream.  Grunge combined elements of hardcore punk and heavy metal into a dirty sound that made use of heavy guitar distortion, fuzz and feedback.

Although most grunge bands had a sound that sharply contrasted mainstream hard rock, for example Nirvana (above left), Mudhoney and L7.  A minority (for example Pearl Jam, Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog and even Soundgarden) were more strongly influenced by much 1970s and 1980s rock and metal.  However, all grunge bands shunned the macho, anthemic and fashion-focused style of hard rock at that time.

In the UK, bands like Swervedriver, Catherine Wheel and Ride demonstrated that guitar heroics could be incorporated into songs that lacked the often-misogynistic content of 1970s and 1980s hard rock bands.  As the popularity of artists such as Metallica and Van Halen continued from the 1980s into the 1990s, some other bands had begun to fuse metal with a range of eclectic influences.  These bands came to be known as alternative metal artists, a subset of alternative rock.

Some, such as Primus, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, Living Colour and White Zombie fused funk with metal styles, though most of these bands actually formed in the '80s.  Faith No More/Mr. Bungle fused many genres with hard rock, ranging from rap music to soul.

Helmet and The Afghan Whigs were also successful experimental hard rock bands.  The Darkness's retro glam-metal influences helped propel them to the upper realms of the charts in the early 2000s, with the likes of Wolfmother.

Towards the mid 2000s with new bands started to become mainstream, Jet, Wolfmother, White Stripes, The Answer, The Glitterati, The Datsuns, Nineteenth Century and Punk influence Towers of London are some of the new rock bands which followed up from the Garage rock revival.

The biggest major hard rock bands of recent years however, have been supergroups Velvet Revolver (right) and Audioslave.  Audioslave consisted of Rage Against the Machine instrumentalists and former Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell and was disbanded in 2007.  Velvet Revolver is made up of ex-members of Guns N' Roses.  Primarily, with vocalist Scott Weiland formerly of the Stone Temple Pilots, the musicians have updated the sound of hard rock.

This has helped revive the glam metal scene (e.g. bands like Buckcherry, which Guns N' Roses Appetite for Destruction album is often credited with influencing).  The 00's even saw reunions and subsquent tours from Rage Against the Machine, Stone Temple Pilots, and Living Colour, in addition to Van Halen and Black Sabbath and even a one off performance by the legendary Led Zeppelin renewing the interest in the seemlingly bygone previous eras.

Heavy Metal  [ top ]

Heavy Metal, its origins springing from hard rock in the late 60s and early 70s. is still very active today.  Some noteable bands include Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeath and Slayer.

It was a mainstream rock music form in the late seventies and through the eighties, and developed into undergraound metal with several offshoots, such as Thrash Metal, Death Metal, Black Metal, Power Metal, Doom and Gothic Metal. 

While typical heavy Metal bands use high-energy, fast guitar and drum licks, etc., Doom and Goth Metal bands often slow things down with droning, distorted guitar, and Heavy Rock style riffs.

Mainstream Heavy Metal in North America faded in the nineties, replaced for the most part by audience interest in Grunge Rock bands.  Alternative Metal and Nu Metal surfaced to continue the Heavy Metal form, although many metal fans lost interest in these styles around the beginning of 2003. 

Metalcore is a form of Heavy Metal popular today, and bands such as Slayer remain critically acclaimed.

New Wave  [ top ]

Music that followed the anarchic garage band ethos of the Sex Pistols was distinguished as "punk", while music that tended toward experimentation, lyrical complexity, or more polished production, was categorised as "New Wave".

This came to include musicians who had come to prominence in the British pub rock scene of the mid-1970s, such as Ian Dury, Nick Lowe, Eddie and the Hot Rods and Dr Feelgood; acts associated with the New York club CBGBs, such as Television, Patti Smith, and Blondie; and singer-songwriters who were noted for their barbed lyrical wit, such as Elvis Costello (above left), Tom Robinson and Joe Jackson.

Furthermore, many artists who would have originally been classified as punk were also termed New Wave. A 1977 Phonogram compilation album of the same name features US artists including the Dead Boys, Ramones, Talking Heads and The Runaways

Definition of New Wave in the U.S.

New Wave in the United States is a popular catchall term used to describe music that emerged in the late 1970s and crested during the 1982-1983 period, in what was dubbed the second British Invasion, when groups deemed “New Wave” scored high on the charts.  The artists deemed “New Wave” in the late 1970s such as Elvis Costello, The Police, Gary Numan, and Squeeze dovetails with the original definition of the genre.

Starting in the early 1980’s and continuing until around 1988 the term New Wave was used in America to describe nearly every new pop/rock artist especially those that used synthesizers.

Examples of artists defined in the United States as New Wave during this period that would not fit the original definition include Duran Duran, A Flock of Seagulls, Depeche Mode, Eurythmics (above right), The Fixx, Adam and the Ants, Human League, Naked Eyes and Culture Club. The term continues to be used today to describe those groups. .

New Wave Revivals

In the early 1990s, the British music weekly NME grouped together a number of guitar-based bands under the unwieldy banner New Wave of New Wave. These groups, including S*M*A*S*H, These Animal Men, Elastica and Echobelly, drew on the aesthetics of 1970s New Wave, including spiky guitars, tight-fitting suits and skinny ties.

In the late 1990s, the Omaha, Nebraska-based band The Faint drew heavily upon New Wave to create its debut album Media, released on Saddle Creek Records in 1998. In the first decade of the 21st century, the electroclash scene in Brooklyn and London (at clubs like Nag Nag Nag and Beyond Club) revived the synth-pop aesthetic for kids born in the 1980s.

Gothic Rock  [ top ]

The first generation of gothic rock bands were associated with styles such as punk rock, post-punk, and new wave. Some of the late-1970s and 1980s gothic rock bands created their own record labels or released their material through independent record labels (such as Beggars Banquet Records); however, like punk rock, this was not a general rule, as some bands in the movement also appeared on major labels.

Most of the early gothic rock groups were from England, although some bands were from other countries; Christian Death came from Los Angeles, The Virgin Prunes from Ireland, and Xmal Deutschland was from Germany.

United Kingdom

Two early post-punk groups labeled "gothic" were Joy Division ((left) and Siouxsie & the Banshees in 1979. Between 1978 and 1979 these bands developed a haunting sound and dark-themed lyrics. Killing Joke and John Lydon's Public Image Ltd also influenced the development of the goth sound.

Siouxsie & the Banshees' output from their debut album The Scream (1978) to Nocturne (1983) were influential on the goth sound. Joy Division was short-lived, due to vocalist Ian Curtis' suicide. Nevertheless their two albums Unknown Pleasures (1979) and Closer (1980) were influential in the gothic scene.

The remaining members of Joy Division became New Order, whose first album Movement (1981) continued Joy Division's gothic style. New Order subsequently moved in a more dance oriented direction.

As the gothic label began to stick to Joy Division and Siouxsie & the Banshees in 1979, Bauhaus (originally called Bauhaus 1919) then came along. They started out wearing plain jeans and t-shirts, but after appearing on the same bill as Gloria Mundi, Bauhaus ended up having a make over, dressing in all black and wearing make up.

Strongly influenced by English Glam rock such as David Bowie and T. Rex, Bauhaus's debut single "Bela Lugosi's Dead" (released in late 1979) is considered to be the beginning of gothic rock proper. Despite their legacy as progenitors of gothic rock, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, and the The Cure chiefly self-identified as punk acts at the time.

In February 1981, Abbo from UK Decay used the term gothic to describe the style of bands such as Danse Society and Play Dead. A year later, Ian Astbury of the band Southern Death Cult used the term "gothic goblins" to describe Sex Gang Children's fans.

However, the term "goth" did not become a label for a movement or "scene" until 1983. The emerging scene was described as "positive punk" in a February 1983 article in the NME magazine. Journalist Richard North described Bauhaus and Theatre of Hate as "the immediate forerunners of today's flood" (which included Southern Death Cult, Sex Gang Children, and Blood & Roses) and declared, "So here it is: the new positive punk, with no empty promises of revolution, either in the rock'n'roll sense or the wider political sphere".

The lead singer of the punk band The Damned, Dave Vanian (a former grave digger), sometimes dressed up as a vampire, which may have influenced the gothic fashion stylings of Siouxsie & the Banshees, Bauhaus and The Cure. Siouxsie & the Banshees and The Cure have retained the goth imagery in their on-stage appearance and albums throughout most of their careers, but their music has explored other related genres.

Bauhaus were more consistently gothic in their on-stage appearance and musical styles until their break-up in 1983. Some members of Bauhaus had a side project called Tones on Tail which continued during the mid 1980s, releasing gothic-styled music influenced by The Beach Boys experimental Pet Sounds album and 1970s drug subculture psychedelic music.

By 1982, gothic rock had become a broader sub-culture, with the emergence of bands such as Sex Gang Children, Southern Death Cult, Skeletal Family, Specimen, and Alien Sex Fiend. Clubs such as the Batcave in London contributed to gothic rock's broader scope by providing a venue for the goth scene.

The Batcave aimed at reinventing David Bowie's vision of glam rock, but with a darker, horror-influenced twist. Gothic rock band members, hangers-on, and fans socialized at the Batcave, which became the prototype goth club environment.

By 1984, Batcave DJs were playing Siouxsie, The Cramps, Sweet, Specimen, Eddie Cochran, and Death Cult. By 1983, the British press began commenting on the gothic rock scene gaining at the Batcave and similar venues.

Second Generation ( 1985–1995)

In the UK, goth bands became more popular and the subculture grew and broadened. Throughout the 1980s, there was much cross-pollination between the European goth subcultures, the Death Rock movement, and the New Romantic (New Wave) movement.

The rise in popularity of alternative rock music in the mid-1980s was mirrored by the rise of gothic rock, most notably in the form of the seminal goth rock bands, The Sisters of Mercy, Fields of the Nephilim (1984), a new version of Christian Death (1985), The Mission (1986), and Mephisto Walz (1987).

By 1985, the post-punk era was giving way to new musical styles, and many of the first generation gothic groups disbanded or changed their style. The Sisters of Mercy's (above left) debut album First and Last and Always (1985) cracked the British top ten, which showed the important influence that this 'first generation' goth band was having on the second generation.

Vocalist Andrew Eldritch's (rightt) voice earned him the moniker "the Godfather of Goth", and the bands' use of a drum machine (along with fellow Leeds residents March Violets) was innovative for the goth scene.

The Three Johns and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry (also Leeds-based bands) used drum machines as well, which became much more common during the second generation (drum machines continued to be common in goth music in the 2000s).

By 1987, gothic groups started to emerge in Canadian cities such as Toronto and Montreal, such as Masochistic Religion, which included the singer from Armed and Hammered. Toronto band Exovedate signed with German record label Pandaimonium Records, and their album Seduced by Illusions received airplay in Australia, Russia, the US, Brazil, Guam, Germany, and Canada.

By this time, a cross-pollination with the growing global post-industrial scene was developing. The blending of goth and 'industrial' music scenes and subcultures can be heard in the music of industrial bands such as Skinny Puppy. Depeche Mode's (left) blend of goth, industrial, and pop and synthesized sounds influenced many goth musicians.

Synthpop acts such as Camouflage, Secession, Celebrate the Nun, and Red Flag followed Depeche Mode's lead, and eventually gothic music found its way into club music, and synthpop began appearing in goth rock.

Third Generation ( 1995 to the present )

In the 1990s, some of the influential 1980s "first generation" bands were still performing. At the same time, North American bands such as Switchblade Symphony (released by the Cleopatra label) and London After Midnight (released by Metropolis Records label in the USA) began releasing material. New English bands included Children on Stun, All Living Fear, Vendemmian and Rosetta Stone.

Other popular goth acts to emerge in the 1990s included The Crüxshadows, The Last Dance, Sunshine Blind and The Shroud.

In Germany, many labels such as Apocalyptic Vision, Apollyon Rekordings, Deathwish Office, Dion Fortune, Glasnost Records, Hyperium Records, Sounds Of Delight, and Talitha Records released Gothic compilations and recordings from bands such as Love Like Blood, Mephisto Walz, The Merry Thoughts, and Two Witches.

France produced some new goth bands such as Corpus Delicti and Dead Souls Rising. Thanks to internet communities and broader CD distribution through such a plethora of record companies, fans of these labels and bands were no longer regionally based; the music was becoming more globalized than before.

In the mid and late 1990s, major record labels, particularly in the United States and Germany, began marketing hard rock and metal acts as "gothic" or "industrial" bands. The formerly underground subcultural aesthetic of goth was incorporated into the sound and image of several popular mainstream bands such as HIM, Marilyn Manson, and more recently bands like Evanescence and Within Temptation, although these bands did not produce goth rock.

The term "goth" became associated in the public's mind with these mainstream bands, the Hot Topic chain, the "mallgoth" aesthetic, and the Columbine school shooting, which led to the US press' subsequent vilification and scrutiny of the goth culture

Much modern goth often has the evolutionary feel of New Wave music or synth pop, though there are also "old school" or "first generation" gothic rock or faux-medieval acts.

Since 2000, some fans have embraced a Death Rock revival, returning to the 1980s music and fashions of the first generation of goth. Bands such as Cinema Strange, Quidam, and Black Ice, along with the website Deathrock.com, have contributed to the revitalization of the first generation-style goth, and Nina Hagen even headlined the 2005 Drop Dead Festival in New York City.

The Cure and Bauhaus's high-profile performances since 2004 have also helped to promote the earlier goth sound, characterized by "jangly" guitars and less club-oriented arrangement.

Though the goth rock has diminished in popularity and its record sales have fallen off, there are still events, labels, and publications supporting it. Dancing Ferret Discs, Projekt Records, and Metropolis Records are releasing goth music in the American market, new Gothic Music is being produced by European labels like Strobelight Records, while the label Cherry Red has been reissuing early goth rock recordings in Europe.

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