Hard rock is a rock genre that first appeared in the mid-1960s in the United States and the United Kingdom at the same time as rock blues, garage rock and psychedelic rock. It is characterized by a strong use of aggressive songs, distortions of guitar, bass guitar, and drums as well as blues, including the use of pentatonic scales, sometimes accompanied by pianos and keyboards.
It became one of the most popular rock genres in the 1970s with bands like Black Sabbath precursor of heavy metal, AC / DC, Aerosmith, Blue Öyster Cult, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Rainbow, Scorpions, Kiss , The Who, Van Halen and Whitesnake. In the 1980s, some hard rock bands turned to a more pop rock style. Hard rock reached a commercial peak in the second half of the 1980s with, on the one hand, a new craze for groups already established and, on the other, groups like Bon Jovi and Def Leppard, associated with glam metal, and Guns N 'Roses, whose sound is more raw.
The genre began to lose popularity with the commercial success of grunge and later the Britpop in the 1990s. Despite this, many post-grunge bands adopted a hard rock sound and in the 2000s there was There was renewed interest among the established groups. New hard rock bands have emerged from garage rock and post-punk revival.
By extension, the term "hard rock" is also used to describe genres such as heavy metal, punk rock and grunge to distinguish them from pop rock.
Hard rock comes from urban blues, British rock and British blues. He also draws his influences from rock 'n' roll and garage rock, going back to Elvis Presley and the Beatles, all artists also influenced by American blues. Led Zeppelin members, especially guitarist Jimmy Page, were inspired by American blues by Muddy Waters and Skip James and traditional Howlin 'Wolf blues. The AC / DC compositions are measured in binary measurement and use the pentatonic ranges. Both riffs and guitar solos are borrowed from the blues; moreover, Angus Young cites blues and rock 'n' roll players such as B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Little Richard, John Lee Hooker and Jimi Hendrix, for example.
