4. Rebellion or Freedom at last? Hamm, Charles E. Rock 'n' Roll in a Very Strange Society. Ed. A. Drury. Spec. issue of Cambridge University Press 5 (1985): 159-174. JSTOR. Web. 1 Dec. 2009.
5. The people who started it all Early 1950’s Hamm, Charles E. Rock 'n' Roll in a Very Strange Society. Ed. A. Drury. Spec. issue of Cambridge University Press 5 (1985): 159-174. JSTOR. Web. 1 Dec. 2009.
6. Fats Domino Helander, Brock. "Rock Artists of the Fifties." The Rockin' '50s:The people who made the music.Illus. Buddy Boy Design. Ed. Brock Helander. 1978. New York: Schirmer Books, 1998. 39-195. Print.
7. Chuck Berry Helander, Brock. "Rock Artists of the Fifties." The Rockin' '50s:The people who made the music.Illus. Buddy Boy Design. Ed. Brock Helander. 1978. New York: Schirmer Books, 1998. 39-195. Print.
8. Little Richard Helander, Brock. "Rock Artists of the Fifties." The Rockin' '50s:The people who made the music.Illus. Buddy Boy Design. Ed. Brock Helander. 1978. New York: Schirmer Books, 1998. 39-195. Print.
9. Elvis Presley Helander, Brock. "Rock Artists of the Fifties." The Rockin' '50s:The people who made the music.Illus. Buddy Boy Design. Ed. Brock Helander. 1978. New York: Schirmer Books, 1998. 39-195. Print.
10. James Brown The Rockin' '60's:The People Who Made The Music. Illus. Buddy Boy Design. Ed. Brock Helander. 1978. New York: Schirmer Books, 1999. Print. The people who made the music.
11. The Doors The Rockin' '60's:The People Who Made The Music. Illus. Buddy Boy Design. Ed. Brock Helander. 1978. New York: Schirmer Books, 1999. Print. The people who made the music.
12. Jimi Hendrix The Rockin' '60's:The People Who Made The Music. Illus. Buddy Boy Design. Ed. Brock Helander. 1978. New York: Schirmer Books, 1999. Print. The people who made the music.
13. B.B. King The Rockin' '60's:The People Who Made The Music. Illus. Buddy Boy Design. Ed. Brock Helander. 1978. New York: Schirmer Books, 1999. Print. The people who made the music.
14. The Beatles Dana, Will. "The Beatles." Nov. 2001. <http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/thebeatles/biography>. Rpt. in The Rollingstone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll. By Holly George-Warren, Jon Pareles, and Patricia Romanowski. Ed. Jann S Wenner. 3rd ed. New York: Jann Wenner, 2001. Rollingstone. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
15. The Rollingstones "The Rolling Stones." Rollingstone. Nov. 2001. <http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/therollingstones/biography>. Rpt. in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll. By Holley George-Warren, Jon Pareles, and Patricia Romanowski. Ed. Jann Wenner and Will Dana. 3rd ed. New York: Jann Wener, 2001. Rollingstone. Web. 29 Nov. 2009.
16. Watson-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. The Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books,2003. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
17. Aerosmith Watson-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. The Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books,2003. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
18. Alice Cooper Watson-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. The Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books, 2003. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
19. Motley Crue Watson-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. The Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books,2003. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
20. Eric Clapton Wats2003on-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. The Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books,. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
21. Watson-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. The Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books, 2003. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
22. Journey Watson-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. The Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books, 2003. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
23. Kiss Watson-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. TheBillboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books,2003. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
24. Lynyrd Skynyrd Watson-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. TheBillboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books, 2003. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
25. Billy Idol Watson-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. The Billboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books,2003. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
26. Queen Watson-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. TheBillboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books,2003. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
27. Prince Watson-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. TheBillboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books,2003. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
28. Blink-182 Watson-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. TheBillboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books,2003. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
29. Green Day Watson-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. TheBillboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books,2003. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
30. Nirvana Watson-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. TheBillboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books,2003. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.
31. What Rock N’ Roll means to the world. Watson-Guptill Publications, Frances Banfield, and Nic Oliver, eds. TheBillboard Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock. New York: Billboard Books,2003. Print. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music. At First The 60’s through the 90’s Present Day
Editor's Notes
Rock n’ Roll was first used in 1951 by Alan Freed, a Cleveland disc jockey, taken from the song "My Baby Rocks Me with a Steady Roll". The use of rock, roll, rock and roll, with reference to sexual intercourse, is traditional in blues, a form of popular music that evolved in the 1950's from rhythm and blues, characterized by the use of electric guitars, a strong rhythm with an accent on the offbeat, and youth-oriented lyrics. A form of popular music arising from and incorporating a variety of musical styles, especially rhythm and blues, country music, and gospel. Originating in the United States in the 1950s, it is characterized by electronically amplified instrumentation, a heavily accented beat, and relatively simple phrase structure.
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, and emerged in the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a blend of rock (from rock 'n' roll) and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music (often called hillbilly music in the 1940s and 1950s) that contributed strongly to the style's development. Other important influences on rockabilly include western swing, boogie woogie, and rhythm and blues. While there are notable exceptions, its origins lie primarily in the Southern United States. The influence and popularity of the style waned in the 1960s, but during the late 1970s and early 1980s, rockabilly enjoyed a major revival of popularity that has endured to the present, often within a rockabilly subculture.
I am sure that many of you know that when Rock n’ Roll first came out it was basically loved by kids our age. Their parents didn’t like the music for what ever reason and decided that their children were not allowed to listen to it. But the kids were described as being rebellious because they were going against what their parents were telling them. But for some it wasn’t about that at all, it was about being free. It was about finally having a genre of music that they and they alone loved. They saw it as having freedom. They were finally free from their parents “chains” that they had kept them in their whole lives. Personally I think that the only reason that adults of that age didn’t like Rock n’ Roll was because it was something new and they had never heard anything like it before so they didn’t know what to make of it. So they hated it because they feared it and so they told their children that they were not to listen to it or else they would get in trouble. But of course teenagers will be teenagers and they listened to it anyway.
Little Richard once said, "The blues had an illegitimate baby and we named it rock 'n' roll.” This is a fair and clever summary of what happened between 1949 and 1954, when black and white musical traditions cross-educated each other, and then disc jockey Alan Freed popularized the phrase "rock and roll," which was black slang for having sex. No one person started rock 'n' roll. It was a black and white alloy of Fats Domino, Lloyd Price, Ike Turner, Hank Williams, Joe Turner, Louis Jordan, Ray Charles, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley. When Rock n’ Roll first came around there were many magazines and TV shows that said that it nothing more than ‘beating on a bucket lid’ and they would say that the audience were ‘hordes of sloppy, aggressive, be-jeaned louts and their girl friends who cause so much trouble’. They went on to say that ‘the exact same ritual and war dances may be seen at less cost and in greater safety, at our own mine compounds’. I think that is a bit dramatic but then again adults back in the day were such drama queens when it came to teenagers interests.
Fats Domino was born as Antoine Domino on February 26, 1928 in New Orleans. He learned to play the piano at a young age and debuted professionally at the age of ten. At the age of fourteen he decided to drop out of school and he started to perform in nightclubs. He was discovered while he was performing at a club called the Hideaway Club by David Bartholomew in 1949. He then signed with Lew Chudd’s Imperial label and after that he had ten years of smash hits. In 1963 he signed with ABC- Paramount Records and after two years with them he decided that he would instead go to Mercury. Three years later he recorded “Lady Madonna” with the Beatles. He also appeared in films called, Shake, Rattle and Roll and he was in The Girl Can’t Help It in 1956 and Jamboree and The Big Beat in 1957. In 1973 he appeared in Let the Good Times Role. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. Fats Domino was the second most commercially successful of the ‘50s rock n’ rollers, selling more than sixty-five million records, Fats Domino made the transition from R&B to rock’n’ roll with his pleasant, upbeat songs and gentle, engaging piano style.
Chuck Berry was born Charles Berry on October 18,1926 in St.Louis, Missouri. He began singing at the age of six and would later take up the guitar after high school. He was in jail for armed robbery from 1944 to 1947. Five years after that he formed his first group with pianist Johnnie Johnson in St.Louis. This group would become the top club band and in May of 1955 Chuck traveled to Chicago and met blues great Muddy Waters. He introduced Chick to Leonard Chess of Chess Records. This was a very good move on his part because Chess Records helped him to sing the songs that would not only make him famous but his songs were one of rock n’ roll’s first. He was in and appeared in Rock Rock Rock, Mister Rock and Roll, Go, Johnny, Go and Jazz on a Summer’s Day. In 1959 he was arrested for violation of the Man Act . When he was released he recorded a major pop hit. In 1964 he toured Great Britain for the first time and recorded with guitarist Bo Diddley. In 1985 he was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame and in the following year he was inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame.
Little Richard was born Richard Penniman on December 5, 1932 in Macon, Georgia. He began singing on the streets at the age of seven and became the lead singer in a local church choir at the age of fourteen and later joined Dr. Hudson’s Medicine Show and Sugarfoot Sam’s Minstrel Show. In 1951 he was performing in the Tick Tock Club and won a talent contest. By winning the contest he was able to get signed with RCA. But this deal went south when the record company couldn’t help him produce any hits. Then he got lucky and was signed with the Los Angeles- based Specialty label. During his run with this he recorded several number one hits like “Tutti Frutti”, “Long Tall Sally”, Slippin’ Slidin’”, “Jenny Jenny”, and “Keep a Knockin’”. In October of 1957 he decided to leave his life of music behind and he became a minister. But he came back to his music in 1963 ad toured Europe with the Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Little Richard is considered the self styled “King of Rock n’ Roll.” He personified the music’s wildness and danger, and was probably the first singer to gain widespread popularity on the basis of a frantic, furious presence in recording and performance. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and in 1993 he performed at Bill Clinton’s presidential inaugural.
Elvis Presley was born January 8, 1935 in East Tupelo, Mississippi and died August 16,1977 in Memphis, Tennessee. The biggest single attraction in the history of popular music, Elvis Presley legitimized black R & B music as rock n’ roll. Initially singing in the guttural mumbling style of black R & B artists, he was one of the first white performers of the ‘50s to exude raw, passionate, sexually charged fervor in performance. As a recording artist, Elvis Presley introduced rock n’ roll to an entire generation of white teenagers who were unaccustomed to the ardent and intense music of black R & B. Because of his move he revolutionized the recording industry, scoring the number of hits, including “Heartbreak Hotel,” hound dog,” “all shook up,” and “jailhouse rock,” that topped the pop, country-and-western, and R&B charts simultaneously. Never again would music be dominated by movie stars, crooning male singers, and cabaret entertainers. He was inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
James Brown was born on May 3, 1928 in Macon, Georgia (although some sources claim May 3, 1933 in Barnwell, South Carolina). Brown was born into poverty in the rural South around the time of the Depression. As a child, he picked cotton, shined shoes, danced for pennies in the streets of Augusta, Georgia, and stole. Convicted of armed robbery at age 16, he spent three years in a juvenile detention institution. He tried semi-professional sports, first as a boxer, then as a baseball pitcher, but a leg injury ruined his chances of going pro. In the meantime, Byrd and Brown had put together a gospel group, which performed under a succession of different names at the Mount Zion Baptist Church, in Toccoa, Georgia, and at auditoriums in the area. After seeing a rock & roll show featuring Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, Fats Domino, and others, Brown and Byrd left gospel music behind, transforming the group into the Flames. Sweating off a purported seven pounds a night, and breaking box-office records in every major black venue in America, Brown earned the nickname "Mr. Dynamite" and the title "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business.” James was inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.On Christmas Day, 2006, James Brown passed away from congestive heart failure due to complications from pneumonia.
Morrison's lyrics read like adolescent posturing, but with his sexually charged delivery, Ray Manzarek's dry organ, and Robby Krieger's jazzy guitar, they became eerie, powerful, almost shamanistic invocations that hinted at a familiarity with darker forces, and, in Morrison’s case, an obsession with excess and death. The Doors soon recorded a demo tape, and in the summer of 1966 they began working as the house band at the Whisky-a-Go-Go, a gig that ended four months later when they were fired for performing the explicitly Oedipal “The End,” one of Morrison’s many songs that included dramatic recitations. It was impossible to tell whether Morrison’s Lizard King persona was a parody of a pop star or simply inspired exhibitionism, but it earned him considerable notoriety. In December 1967 he was arrested for public obscenity at a concert in New Haven, and in August 1968 he was arrested for disorderly conduct aboard an airplane en route to Phoenix. Soon after L.A. Woman (Number Nine, 1971) was recorded, Morrison took an extended leave of absence from the group. Obviously physically and emotionally drained, he moved to Paris, where he hoped to write and where he and his wife, Pamela Courson Morrison, lived in seclusion. He died of heart failure in his bathtub in 1971 at age 27. Partly because news of his death was not made public until days after his burial in Paris’ Père-Lachaise cemetery, some still refuse to believe Morrison is dead. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.
Jimi Hendrix was one of rock's few true originals. He was one of the most innovative and influential rock guitarists of the late '60s and perhaps the most important electric guitarist after Charlie Christian. His influence figures prominently in the playing styles of rockers ranging from Robin Trower to Vernon Reid to Stevie Ray Vaughan. A left-hander who took a right-handed Fender Stratocaster and played it upside down, Hendrix pioneered the use of the instrument as an electronic sound source. Players before Hendrix had experimented with feedback and distortion, but he turned those effects and others into a controlled, fluid vocabulary every bit as personal as the blues with which he began. His expressively unconventional, six-string vocabulary has lived on in the work of such guitarists as Adrian Belew, Eddie Van Halen, and Prince. Hendrix's theatrical performing style--full of unmistakably sexual undulations, and such tricks as playing the guitar behind his back and picking it with his teeth--has never quite been equaled. In the decades since Hendrix's death, pop stars from Rick James and Prince to Lenny Kravitz and Erykah Badu have evoked his look and style. As a teenager growing up in Seattle, Hendrix taught himself to play guitar by listening to records by blues guitarists Muddy Waters and B.B. King and rockers such as Chuck Berry and Eddie Cochran. he played at the Isle of Wight Festival, his last concert, in August 1970, a recording of which would see release in 2002. A month later he was dead. The cause of death was given in a coroner's report as inhalation of vomit following barbiturate intoxication. Suicide was not ruled out, but evidence pointed to an accident. The Jimi Hendrix experience was inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1992.
B.B. King was born September 16, 1925, on a plantation in Itta Bena, Mississippi, near Indianola. In his youth, he played on street corners for dimes, and would sometimes play in as many as four towns a night. In 1947, he hitchhiked to Memphis, TN, to pursue his music career. B.B.'s first big break came in 1948 when he performed on Sonny Boy Williamson's radio program on KWEM out of West Memphis. This led to steady engagements at the Sixteenth Avenue Grill in West Memphis, and later to a ten-minute spot on black-staffed and managed Memphis radio station WDIA. "King's Spot," became so popular, it was expanded and became the "Sepia Swing Club." Soon B.B. needed a catchy radio name. What started out as Beale Street Blues Boy was shortened to Blues Boy King, and eventually B.B. King. Soon after his number one hit, "Three O'Clock Blues," B.B. began touring nationally. In 1956, B.B. and his band played an astonishing 342 one-night stands. From the chitlin circuit with its small-town cafes, juke joints, and country dance halls to rock palaces, symphony concert halls, universities, resort hotels and amphitheaters, nationally and internationally, B.B. has become the most renowned blues musician of the past 40 years. Over the years, B.B. has developed one of the world's most identifiable guitar styles. B.B. was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He received NARAS' Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award in 1987, and has received honorary doctorates from Tougaloo(MS) College in 1973; Yale University in 1977; Berklee College of Music in 1982; Rhodes College of Memphis in 1990; Mississippi Valley State University in 2002 and Brown University in 2007. In 1992, he received the National Award of Distinction from the University of Mississippi. B.B. continues to tour extensively, averaging over 250 concerts per year around the world.
Lennon was performing with his amateur skiffle group the Quarrymen at a church picnic on July 6, 1957, in the Liverpool suburb of Woolton when he met McCartney, whom he later invited to join his group; soon they were writing songs together, such as "The One After 909." By the year's end McCartney had convinced Lennon to let Harrison join their group, the name of which was changed to Johnny and the Moondogs in 1958. On February 21, 1961, they debuted at the Cavern club on Mathew Street in Liverpool, beginning a string of nearly 300 performances there over the next couple of years. The Beatles had been playing regularly to packed houses at the Cavern when they were spotted on November 9 by Brian Epstein.Epstein tried landing the Beatles a record contract, but nearly every label in Europe rejected the group. In May 1962, however, producer George Martin signed the group to EMI's Parlophone subsidiary. on August 16, 1962, and Ringo Starr, drummer with a popular Liverpool group, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, was added, just in time for the group's first recording session. On September 11 the Beatles cut two originals, "Love Me Do" b/w "P.S. I Love You," which became their first U.K. Top 20 hit in October. On February 7 screaming mobs met them at New York City's Kennedy Airport, and more than 70 million people watched each of their appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9 and 16. In April 1964 "Can't Buy Me Love" became the first record to top American and British charts simultaneously, and that same month the Beatles held the top five positions on Billboard singles chart. On April 10, 1970, McCartney released his first solo album and publicly announced the end of the Beatles. At the same time, Let It Be finally surfaced, becoming the group's 14th Number One album. In 1988 the Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Jagger and Richards first met at Dartford Maypole County Primary School. When they ran into each other 10 years later in 1960, they were both avid fans of blues and American R&B, and they found they had a mutual friend in guitarist Dick Taylor, a fellow student of Richards’ at Sidcup Art School. Jagger was attending the London School of Economics and playing in Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys with Taylor. Richards joined the band as second guitarist. On July 12, 1962, the Rolling Stones — Jagger, Richards, Jones, a returned Dick Taylor on bass, and Mick Avory, later of the Kinks, on drums — played their first show at the Marquee. In April 1964 their first album was released in the U.K., and two months later they made their first American tour. In January 1965 the band’s single, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” reigned at Number One for four weeks that summer and remains perhaps the most famous song in its remarkable canon. The Rolling Stones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in January 1989.
This Australian hard-rock band was formed in 1973 by Malcolm Young who is the rhythm guitarist. He enlisted the help of his younger brother Angus who plays the lead guitar. Their sister was the one who suggested that Angus wear is school uniform and it became his trademark. Originally the vocalist for the band was Dave Evans but one night he refused to go on stage and he was replaced by Bon Scott in 1974; he was the band’s chauffeur. Scott was the vocalist for their first two albums named High Voltage and TNT. These albums were originally not released outside Australia but Britain’s Atlantic Records were allowed to share some of the songs from both albums. The moment that they started to tour outside Australia they developed a cult following because of their unashamed gimmickry of their live performances as for their furious, frequently risqué brand of hard rock. Even though they had some success it wasn’t until 1979’s Highway To Hell that they established themselves as international stars. This would be their last album with front man Bon Scott. On February 19, 1980, after a night of heavy drinking he was left in his friend’s car unconscious and he died from choking on his own vomit. Scott’s death threatened the future of the band but his replacement Brian Johnson proved to be up to the task. The album Back In Black reached number one in the UK and Australia. Their next album For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) topped the United States charts for three weeks. The show no signs of varying its winning musical formula and greeted the new millennium in their typical style with the album Stiff Upper Lip.
Aerosmith is one of the most popular hard-rock acts, they were formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1970 by Stephen Tyler and Joe Perry. Then they enlisted Tom Hamilton on bass, Joey Kramer on drums and Ray Tabano who was quickly replaced with Brad Whitford. They had their first performance at Nipmuc Regional High School. As their popularity grew they were signed to Columbia Records after a fantastic gig at Max’s Kansas City. Their debut album only had minor success and it’s single ‘Dream On’ peaked at number 59. Their album Toys In The Attic was extremely popular and sold six million copies worldwide. But the members' growing drug problems and internal dissension contributed to a commercial decline that began with 1977's Draw the Line. Two crucial lineup changes and a few poorly received albums preceded a 1984 reunion of the original lineup and the multiplatinum Permanent Vacation, which signaled one of the most spectacular comebacks in rock history. Though they are now into the sober lifestyle, Aerosmith forfeited none of their bad-boy image, and their live shows were among the best of their long career. Even critics liked them better the second time around. With members now over 50, Aerosmith continue to embody classic rock grounded in a late-Seventies style.
Vincent Furnier, son of a preacher, assembled his hard-rocking band in Phoenix. They were first known as the Earwigs, then the Spiders, and finally the Nazz. They moved en masse to L.A. in 1968. Billing themselves as Alice Cooper, they established themselves on the Southern California bar circuit with a bizarre stage show and a reputation as the worst band in L.A. Frank Zappa's Straight Records released their first two albums, which sold poorly and, with tour costs, left them $100,000 in debt. They moved to Detroit, where they lived for several months in a single hotel room before the release of their major-label debut and breakthrough album, Love It to Death. Joining Cooper's taboo-defying lyrics to powerful hard rock, the album became the first in a string of gold and platinum releases. The Nightmare Returns Tour and MTV Halloween special brought Cooper's violent, twisted onstage fantasies to a new generation, and he closed the 1980s with the platinum Trash and "Poison”, his first Top 20 single in more than a decade. Cooper, for whom Alice is such a character that he speaks of him in the third person in interviews. His career waning in the late-1990s, Cooper moved away from the power ballads that had marked his 1980s records and reunited with producer Bob Ezrin on the indie release Brutal Planet, a science-fiction concept album. But despite the return of a guillotine as an accessory on the Live From the Brutal Planet Tour, Cooper seems mild compared to the likes of Slipknot or Marilyn Manson, who arguably were directly inspired by him. These days not only does Alice Cooper play family-friendly places such as state fairs but he also opened a restaurant, Alice Cooper'stown, in Phoenix. Cooper increasingly seems to take delight in subverting his long-running horror-rock reputation: He's an avid golfer, as well as an occasional supporter of George H.W. Bush.In 2008, at the age of 60, Cooper released Along Came a Spider a concept album written from the perspective of a serial killer.
The poster boys for Eighties hair metal, Mötley Crüe parlayed whip-lash hard-rock songs, melodic power ballads and a hedonistic image into platinum-level heavy-metal superstardom, topping the charts with Dr. Feelgood and coming close with Theatre of Pain, Girls, Girls Girls and a greatest-hits collection, Decade of Decadence. Nikki Sixx was a member of a successful L.A. metal band called London when he decided to form his own band. Tommy Lee came aboard as drummer, and they decided to call themselves Christmas. Guitarist Mick Mars was discovered through a classified ad reading, "Loud Rude Aggressive Guitarist Available." Vocalist Vince Neil was plucked from a Cheap Trick cover band. Shout at the Devil, with its canny hints of Satanism, was their second album, but the band did not catch on in a big way until Theatre of Pain. Fueled by a cover of Brownsville Station's 1974 hit "Smokin' in the Boy's Room”and the power ballad "Home Sweet Home”, the album sold more than two million copies. For all the album sales, Crüe also was known as an extravagant live band, a scrappier Van Halen doing a rock version of a Vegas review, with elaborate sets and lighting, revolving drum platforms, pyrotechnics and dancing girls. Still, subsequent albums Girls, Girls, Girls and Dr. Feelgood continued the band's streak of platinum discs, selling two million and four million copies, respectively. Off stage, Mötley Crüe lived the rock & roll lifestyle to its fullest, with celebrity marriages. Tommy Lee to actress Heather Locklear, from 1986 to 1994, then to Baywatch bombshell Pamela Anderson from 1995 to 1998; Nikki Sixx to former Prince protégée Vanity in 1987 substance abuse and scrapes with the law. Sixx spent more than a year addicted to heroin. In 1986 Neil was convicted of vehicular manslaughter after a drunken car accident two years earlier resulted in the death of Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas "Razzle" Dingley. Neil served twenty days in jail, performed 200 hours of community service and was assessed $2.6 million in damages. In 2005, the Crüe hit the road for a reunion tour that coincided with another greatest-hits compilation, Red, White & Crüe, that included three new tracks, "If I Die Tomorrow" – penned by pop-punkers Simple Plan, "Sick Love Song" and a cover of The Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man.” All four members of Mötley Crüe convened in 2008 to record Saints of Los Angeles, a musical autobiographical companion to the band's 2001 tell-all book, The Dirt. A planned movie stalled in the production stages. The title track holds the honor of being the first single to be debuted in the influential Rock Band video game series, and the album debuted at Number Four.
Raised by his grandparents after his mother abandoned him at an early age, Eric Clapton grew up a self-confessed "nasty kid." He studied stained-glass design at Kingston Art School and started playing the guitar at 15 and joining groups two years later. He stayed with his first band, the early British R&B outfit the Roosters, from January to August 1963 and frequently jammed in London clubs with, among others, future members of the Rolling Stones. The guitarist put in a seven-gig stint with a Top 40 band, Casey Jones and the Engineers, in September 1963. He joined the Yardbirds in late 1963 and stayed with them until March 1965, when they began to leave behind power blues for psychedelic pop. he formed Cream. There, Clapton perfected his virtuoso style, and Cream’s concerts featured lengthy solo excursions, which Clapton often performed with his back to the crowd. During his tenure with Cream, Clapton contributed lead fills to the Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and appeared on Frank Zappa’s We’re Only in It for the Money. When Cream broke up in November 1968, Clapton formed the short-lived super group Blind Faith with Baker, Winwood, and Rick Grech. He recorded his first solo album, Eric Clapton, which yielded a U.S. Number 18 hit, the J.J. Cale song “After Midnight.” The album marked Clapton’s emergence as a lead vocalist, a role he continued to fill after forming Derek and the Dominos with bassist Carl Radle, drummer Jim Gordon, and keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, all former Delaney and Bonnie sidemen. The Dominos’ only studio album, the two-LP Layla, was a guitar tour de force sparked by the contributions of guest artist Duane Allman. In the 1970s Clapton became a dependable hit-maker with the easygoing, more commercial style he introduced on 461, a relaxed shuffle that, like J.J. Cale’s sound, hinted at gospel, honky-tonk, and reggae while retaining a blues feeling but not necessarily the blues structure. Playing fewer and shorter guitar solos, he emphasized his vocals, which were often paired with harmonies by Yvonne Elliman or Marcy Levy; over his guitar virtuosity. In 2004 he releasedMe and Mr. Johnson, an album-length tribute to the blues master Robert Johnson, Clapton’s all-time musical idol. The following May, Cream reunited for a series of shows in London and New York. That August, he released a new solo disc, Back Home. In November 2006, The Road to Escondido, a collaboration with J.J. Cale, was issued. In 2007 he published his compelling autobiography, simply titled Clapton.
It wasn't just Led Zeppelin's thunderous volume, sledgehammer beat, and edge-of-mayhem arrangements that made it the most influential and successful heavy-metal pioneer, it was the band's finesse. Jimmy Page blessed the group with a unique understanding of the guitar and the recording studio as electronic instruments, and of rock as sculptured sound; like Jimi Hendrix, Page had a reason for every bit of distortion, feedback, reverberation, and out-and-out noise that he incorporated. Few of the many acts that try to imitate Led Zeppelin can make the same claim. When the Yardbirds fell apart in the summer of 1968, Page was left with rights to the group's name and a string of concert obligations. He enlisted John Paul Jones. Page and Jones had first met, jammed together, and discussed forming a group when both were hired to back Donovan on his Hurdy Gurdy Man LP. Page had hoped to complete the group with drummer B.J. Wilson of Procol Harum and singer Terry Reid. Neither was available, but Reid recommended Plant, who in turn suggested Bonham, drummer for his old Birmingham group, Band of Joy. The four first played together as the session group behind P.J. Proby on his Three Week Hero. In October 1968 they embarked on a tour of Scandinavia under the name the New Yardbirds. Upon their return to England they recorded their debut album in 30 hours. Adopting the name Led Zeppelin, they toured the U.S. in early 1969, opening for Vanilla Fudge. Their first album was released in February; within two months it had reached Billboard's Top 10. Led Zeppelin II reached Number One two months after its release, and since then every album of new material has gone platinum; five of the group's LPs have reached Number One. After touring almost incessantly during its first two years together, Zeppelin began limiting its appearances to alternating years. The band's 1973 U.S. tour broke box-office records throughout the country, and by 1975 its immense ticket and album sales had made Led Zeppelin the most popular rock & roll group in the world. In 1974 the quartet established its own label, Swan Song. The label's first release was Physical Graffiti, the band's first double-album set, which sold 4 million copies. In recent years, Page has become the group's unofficial archivist, and in 2003 he oversaw the release of two best-selling live-show collections: The three-disc album How The West Was Won and the DVD set Led Zeppelin. He then turned his attention to The Song Remains the Same, expanding both the film and its soundtrack for a November 2007 re-release, which was accompanied by yet another best-of collection, Mothership. The slew of vintage-Zeppelin material was merely a prelude for a long-rumored reunion, which finally occurred on December 10th, 2007, at a London concert in honor of Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegün. With Jason Bonham on drums, the band performed 16 songs, including "Good Times Bad Times," "Kashmir" and "No Quarter." Both Page and Plant have hinted that more reunion showsand possibly even a worldwide tourmay be in the works.
The band was formed in 1973 by ex-Santana members Neil Schon who played the guitar and Gregg Riliem who played the keyboards with Ross Valory who was the bassist and Prairie Prince on drums. George Tickner was add as a rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist. He was later replaced by Steve Perry. With Infinity, their fourth LP and the first with Perry, Journey became a top group, as moderately successful singles and constant touring made Infinity the group's first platinum LP; it eventually sold 3 million copies. "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" from Evolution was Journey's first Top 30 hit; earlier that year "Just the Same Way" had been a moderate success. In 1980 "Anyway You Want It" from Departure hit Number 23. Departure became Journey's third consecutive multiplatinum album. Columbia repackaged material from the first three (pre-Perry) LPs as In the Beginning. Escape became the group's first Number One LP. It sold 7 million copies and spawned two other Top 10 hits: "Open Arms" and "Don't Stop Believin'." All of the Perry LPs have been certified platinum, and in late 1982 the group became the first rock band to inspire a video game, Journey—Escape. Like many other mainstream hard-rock outfits, Journey made the transition to video, and their post-1983 albums continued to sell in the millions. The group disbanded after Schon and Cain left in 1989 to join Cain's ex-Babys band mate John Waite in Bad English; in 1991 Valory and Rolie joined the Storm. Time3 peaked only at Number 90. In late 1993 the band, minus Perry, reunited at a Bay Area concert honoring Herbert. In 1994 Perry had a hit album with For the Love of Strange Medicine and a top single, "You Better Wait”. However, he and Journey resumed activity in 1996, resulting in Trial by Fire. The single "When You Love a Woman" hit Number One on the Adult Contemporary chart.
Kiss may have been one of the biggest-selling acts of the '70s, but it will always be known, above all else, as the band without a face. Until 1983, when the group removed its distinctive comic-book makeup, the four members' faces supposedly had never been photographed,although pictures of them applying their makeup for an early photo session ran in Creem magazine in the early '80s. Theatrics and basic hard rock have been Kiss' main calling card. The quartet formed in the heyday of glitter and rock theater, and it set out to define, at first, evil cartoon-character personas, highlighted by Gene Simmons' bass-playing, fire-breathing, (stage) blood-spewing ghoul. The group was founded by Simmons and Stanley, who met in a band in 1970. They found Criss through his ad in Rolling Stone. After rehearsing as a trio, the group took out an ad in the Village Voice for a guitarist with “flash and balls” and discovered Ace Frehley. At the time, they were all working dead-end jobs, with the exception of Simmons, who taught school at P.S. 75 in Manhattan. The critics hissed at the anonymous heavy-metal thud rock on the band’s first three albums and howled at its mock-threatening image. Nonetheless, Kiss hit it off with its fans (the Kiss Army) from the very start. After some hard financial times, the band took off with Alive, which contained the Top 20 hit “Rock and Roll All Nite.” As the group racked up more and more platinum records;six between 1976 and 1979. Young fans were frequently photographed wearing the makeup of their favorite Kiss member. the group’s popularity was beginning to wane. Four simultaneously released solo LPs sold poorly although the group had several hit singles, including the disco-metal oddity “I Was Made for Loving You”. The group then briefly changed its image, abandoning the comic-book characters for a New Romanticinfluenced look. Music From “The Elder,” an overambitious concept album, featured songs co-written by Lou Reed and was the group’s first album not to go gold. Kiss quickly reverted to its ghoul makeup and primitive hard-rock music, and Creatures of the Night eventually sold 500,000 copies and was certified gold. By the early ’90s, Kiss had sold more than 70 million albums. And as proof that in rock & roll anyone can become a legend if he sticks around long enough, 1994 saw the release of Kiss My Ass, on which artists as diverse as Garth Brooks, Lenny Kravitz, and Anthrax recorded their favorite Kiss songs as a tribute to the band critics loved to hate. The success of the album anticipated the 1996 reunion of the original Kiss for the taping of MTV’s Unplugged, which in turn led to a full-on reunion tour which was the year’s highest-grossing concert attraction with complete with makeup, stage blood, and pyrotechnics. Whether or not Kiss is kaput, the band’s legacy is ensured by the savvy merchandising of its instantly recognizable, cartoonish image, which has inspired pinball games, plastic action figures and comic book spinoffs.
Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd rose to prominence in 1973 epitomizing regional pride and stressing cocky, boisterous hard rock as opposed to the Allman Brothers' more open-ended blues. Their signature song, "Freebird," complete with it five-minute three-guitar attack solo, is easily the most requested live song in existence. When the band broke up in 1977, after Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines died in a plane crash, rock music suffered a tremendous loss. Lynyrd Skynyrd first met in high school in their hometown, Jacksonville, Florida. Van Zant, Allen Collins, and Gary Rossington formed the band My Backyard in 1965, eventually joined by Leon Wilkeson and Billy Powell. Their later name immortalized a gym teacher, Leonard Skinner, who was known to punish students who had long hair. The band, with original drummer Bob Burns, was playing in Atlanta at a bar called Funocchio's in 1972, when they were spotted by Al Kooper, who was on a tour with Badfinger and also scouting bands for MCA's new Sounds of the South label. Kooper signed Skynyrd and produced its 1973 debut, Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd. The group's initial hook was its three-guitar attack, topping the Allmans' trademark two-guitar leads. Skynyrd first got radio airplay with"Freebird." What had been written as a tribute to Duane Allman eventually became an anthem for Skynyrd fans. The band hooked up with the Who's Quadrophenia Tour in 1973 and acquired a reputation as a live act. Its 1974 follow up LP, the multi-platinum Second Helping, also produced by Kooper, reached Number 12. It included another instant Southern standard, "Sweet Home Alabama”, a reply to Neil Young's "Alabama" and "Southern Man.” In October 1976 with the double live One More From the Road, which went to Number Nine, sold triple platinum, and featured new third guitarist Steve Gaines, plus a trio of female backup singers, including Gaines' sister Cassie. The band became one of the biggest U.S. concert draws. Street Survivors, its sixth LP, was released three days before the plane crash of October 20, 1977. Skynyrd was traveling in a privately chartered plane between shows in Greenville, South Carolina, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when it crashed just outside Gillsburg, Mississippi, killing three members. The rest escaped with injuries.Ironically, the cover of the band's last record pictured the members standing in flames and included an order form for a "Lynyrd Skynyrd survival kit." There was also a Van Zant composition about death called "That Smell." The cover was changed shortly after the accident, and the album went on to become one of Skynyrd's biggest sellers. To mark the 10th anniversary of the fatal plane crash, in 1987 Rossington, Powell, Wilkeson, and King put Lynyrd Skynyrd back together, along with guitarist Randall Hall and Johnny Van-Zant on lead vocals. In 1991 the same group released a new record, Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991. Both it and 1993's The Last Rebel carried on Skynyrd's musical tradition and were reasonably well received. The band signed with Southern-rock stronghold Capricorn Records and released the one-off acoustic Endangered Species in 1994. In 2006 the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In September 2007, Thomasson died of a heart attack at his Florida home. The band continues touring as Lynyrd Skynyrd.
When his punk band, Generation X, broke up in 1981, oft-sneering singer Billy Idol moved to New York City and made the transformation from scrawny punk-rocker to slightly less scrawny new-waver. Released in 1981, his first solo-career EP, Don't Stop, contained two hits, though it would take some time for either of them to pay off: His cover of Tommy James and The Shondells' "Mony Mony” would finally chart in the form of a liver version in 1987, while a remake of Generation X's ode to onanism, "Dancing With Myself," wouldn't take off until 1983, when MTV placed its Mad Max-style video in heavy rotation. Idol's full-length debut, Billy Idol, must have come as a shock to those who had watched his early career in Britain: The lead-off track, "Hot In The City” sounded like Bruce Springsteen with a synthesizer. And while the follow-up single, "White Wedding” was slightly more menacing, Idol had established himself as a Top 40 contender. Rebel Yell was even more successful, selling two million copies and being re-issued in 1999 with a disc of demos. Its two biggest singles encapsulated both aspects of Idol's sound: "Rebel Yell” was a borderline-goth dance number, while "Eyes Without A Face” was a moody ballad that could have been recorded by the Cure; at least until Stevens' metal-squall guitar solo. Two more singles followed, both released in 1984: "Flesh For Fantasy” and "Catch My Fall." Whiplash Smile which is arguably the best-titled album of Idol's career was less successful than Rebel, selling only a million copies in the United States. But a remix collection, Vital Idol, was an unexpected hit, thanks to the "Mony Mony" cover. In 1990, while working on his fourth album, Idol crashed his motorcycle; as a result, he was partially immobile while filming the video for "Cradle of Love”, the first single from Charmed Life. Despite "Cradle" and a cover of the Doors' "L.A. Woman”, the album was more downbeat than Idol's usual fare, and garnered mixed reviews. Idol remained musically inactive throughout much of the rest of the 1990s, though he did appear as himself in the 1998 Adam Sandler comedy The Wedding Singer. In 2001, a revamped Greatest Hits found Idol covering Simple Minds' "(Don't You) Forget About Me." He and Stevens reunited for an MTV 20th-anniversary special that same year, and later recorded a mostly acoustic session for VH-1, which was documented on VH1 Storytellers. Devil's Playground was Idol's first album of all-new material since Cyberpunk, and again found him collaborating with Stevens. The record was a commercial failure, but it allowed Idol to tour extensively, including a number of gigs on the Warped Tour.
The enormously popular British band Queen epitomized pomp rock, with elaborate stage setups, smoke bombs, flashpots, lead singer Freddie Mercury's half-martial, half-coy preening onstage, and highly produced, much-overdubbed music on record. Queen can be traced back to 1967, when Brian May and Roger Taylor joined singer Tim Staffell in a group called Smile. Staffell soon left to go solo, and the remaining two Smiles teamed up with Freddie Mercury and later John Deacon. They played very few gigs at the start, avoiding the club circuit and rehearsing for two years while they all remained in college.They began touring in 1973, when their debut album was released. After a second LP, the band made its U.S. tour debut, opening for Mott the Hoople. Queen's sound combined showy glam rock, heavy metal, and intricate vocal harmonies produced by multi-tracking Mercury's voice. Heavy-metal fans loved Queen, and the band's audience grew with its breakthrough LP, 1975's A Night at the Opera. It contained the six-minute gold "Bohemian Rhapsody”, which featured a Mercury solo episode of "mama mia" with dozens of vocal tracks. "Bohemian Rhapsody" stayed at Number One in England for nine weeks. Queen has had eight gold and six platinum records; through the mid-'80s only its second LP and the 1980 soundtrack to the film Flash Gordon failed to sell so impressively. In 1980 they released The Game which featured two big hits in the rockabilly-style "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and the disco-style "Another One Bites the Dust," a close relative of Chic's "Good Times," that went to Number One pop and R&B. The Game became Queen's first American Number One album. In early 1991 rumors were rampant that Mercury was ill with AIDS, something the group continually denied. That November he released a statement from his deathbed confirming the stories; just two days later he died of the disease in his London mansion at age 45. On April 20, 1992, the surviving members of Queen were joined by a host of stars including Elton John, Axl Rose, David Bowie, Def Leppard, and many other admirers for a memorial concert held at Wembley Stadium that was broadcast to a worldwide audience of more than 1 billion. The concert raised millions for the Mercury Phoenix Trust, an AIDS awareness and education fund established by the band members and their manager, Jim Beach. In 1993, May released his second solo album, Back to the Light, and continued recording solo and with the Brian May Band. In 1995 Queen finally completed its swan song Made in Heaven, which features vocals recorded by Mercury during the last year of his life. In 1996 a statue of the singer was unveiled in Montreux, Switzerland. Queen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.
One of the most flamboyant, controversial, influential, and popular artists of the 1980s, Prince is also one of the least predictable and most mysterious. At a time when comparable megastars such as Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Janet Jackson were delivering an album every three years or so, Prince remained prolific to an almost self-destructive degree. his taut, keyboard-dominated Minneapolis Sound a hybrid of rock, pop, and funk, with blatantly sexual lyrics not only influenced his fellow Minneapolis artists the Time and Janet Jackson's producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, but also impacted much of 1980s dance-pop music. And Michael, Madonna, and Janet were comparable to Prince only in terms of star power. None could match the formidable breadth of his talents, which included not just singing and dancing but also composing, producing, and playing instruments. In fact, Prince played nearly all the instruments on his first five albums, and has produced himself since signing with Warner Bros. at age 21. Prince started playing piano at age seven, guitar at 13, and drums at 14, all self-taught. By age 14 he was in a band called Grand Central, which later became Champagne. Four years later, a demo tape he made with engineer Chris Moon reached local businessman Owen Husney. In 1978 Husney negotiated Prince's contract with Warner Bros. Prince, Dirty Mind, and Controversy all eventually went platinum. For his second album, Prince had formed a racially and sexually mixed touring band that included childhood friend Andre Cymone on bass, Dez Dickerson on guitar, keyboardists Gayle Chapman and Matt Fink, and drummer Bobby "Z" Rivkin. A double album, 1999, went platinum, bolstered by the Top 10 singles "Little Red Corvette” and "Delirious” , and the title track. "Little Red Corvette" was also among the first videos by a black performer to be played regularly on MTV. Prince vaulted to superstardom in 1984 with Purple Rain, a seemingly autobiographical movie set in the Minneapolis club scene and co-starring the Time and Apollonia 6. It was an enormous hit, as was the soundtrack album, which spent 24 weeks atop the chart and sold eventually sold over 13 million copies, yielding hit singles with "When Doves Cry”, "Let's Go Crazy”, "Purple Rain”, "I Would Die 4 U”, and "Take Me With U”. The album marked the first time in his career that Prince had recorded with, and credited, his backing band, which he named the Revolution. At the 1985 Grammy Awards, Prince won Best Group Rock Vocal for "Purple Rain" and R&B Song of the Year for "I Feel For You”. After the gala, Prince, who for all his sexual exhibitionism onstage was painfully shy offstage declined an offer to take part in the all-star recording session for "We Are the World.” That, and his fey demeanor at the 1985 Academy Awards show, where he won a Best Original Score Oscar for Purple Rain, were the first signals of Prince's personal eccentricities to his newfound mass audience. In spring 1986 Prince was back atop the pop chart with "Kiss," a stripped-down funk number. It would be heard briefly in Prince's next movie, Under the Cherry Moon. In 1989 Prince had his first chart-topping album in four years with his soundtrack for director Tim Burton's big-budget film Batman; "Batdance" was Prince's first Number One since "Kiss.” In January 1991, at his recently opened Glam Slam nightclub in Minneapolis, Prince unveiled a new band, the New Power Generation, who would not tour the U.S. until 1993. The band included a rapping dancer Anthony "Tony M" Mosely, in Prince's first nod to hip-hop, which had claimed a significant share of his black-pop audience and with which he never seemed comfortable musically. In September 1993 Prince pulled the most eccentric move of his career: he changed his name to the unpronounceable symbol he had titled his last album. "Symbol Man," "Glyph," or "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince” shortened to the Artist as he was now known, suffered widespread ridicule followed by a business setback in February 1994 when Warner Bros. dropped its distribution deal with Paisley Park Records, effectively putting the label out of business. Meanwhile, the Artist issued the triple-CD set Emancipation on his own New Power Generation label, which was distributed through Capitol/EMI. The album went double platinum, and a remake of the Stylistics' 1972 hit "Betcha By Golly Wow" reached Number Ten on the R&B chart. In February 2004, Prince appeared with Beyoncé at the Grammy Awards, playing his own "Purple Rain," "Let's Go Crazy," and "Baby I'm a Star," along with Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love." A month later, he was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on his first try; during the closing ceremony he played the song-ending solo on George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."
Blink-182 continued the unexpected '90s journey of pop-punk into the mainstream. The trio emerged from Southern Californian skate-punk culture with a high-energy stage show heavy with slapstick and fart jokes. But like the slightly older Green Day, closer study revealed hook-filled rock songs obsessed with breakup and loneliness, even occasionally delving into such topics as teen suicide. Mark Hoppus grew up in the California desert town of Ridgecrest before moving to Washington, DC, when his parents divorced. A fan of the Cure and the Descendents, Hoppus played bass in a high school garage band. Meanwhile, Tom Delonge grew up riding skateboards near San Diego and picked up his first guitar at church camp. They met in 1991 while Hoppus was attending college near San Diego, and with drummer Scott Raynor they later formed a band, at first simply called Blink. When an Irish band with the same name threatened a lawsuit, it was changed to Blink-182. Early shows featured wet T-shirt and wet pants contests. The band slowly built a young, devoted following with indie recordings and an endless series of performances at various clubs and festivals. Major labels took notice in 1997 with the fast-selling indie release Dude Ranch. The band signed to MCA, releasing the Top 10 triple-platinum album Enema of the State. It included the hits “All the Small Things” and “What’s My Age Again”. Band members also appeared briefly in the teen comedy American Pie. The band’s next release was a live album, The Mark, Tom and Travis Show, which yielded one single, “Man Overboard,” that had only moderate success. Take Off Your Pants and Jacket took Blink-182 to the top of the album chart for the first time. Their 2003 self-titled release held fast their penchant for teen-drenched hormonal brooding, but also revealed a developing musical and personal maturity, the kind that galvanizes matters of the heart as evidenced by Robert Smith’s presence on the album. Then in early 2005 the band declared an immediate, indefinite hiatus in order to be closer with their growing families. A Greatest Hits was released later that year. Hoppus and Barker later formed the band Plus 44. Each member continues to work on various clothing line companies.
Punk revivalists in style, this raucous trio achieved triple-platinum status with their major-label debut, Dookie. Although Green Day's taut, three-minute, guitar-driven songs ably revive the fierceness of the group's stylistic progenitors, punk's original aim is to annoy, outrage, and shock. But this is not Green Day's thing. Friends since age 10, Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirnt grew up in Rodeo, California. They formed their first real band, Sweet Children, at 14. When they were 17, the pair first recorded as Green Day, signing with the punk label Lookout and releasing the 1989 album 1,000 Hours with drummer John Kiffmeyer. The next year, the group recorded its first full-length album, 39/Smooth, in a day. They started to have a solid fan base and because of this they were signed with Reprise in April of 1993. Their debut album Dookie sold 10 million copies and was considered to be the new age of punk and it also won a 1994 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance. The 1995 follow-up Insomniac sold nearly 3 million copies and charted at Number Two, but failed to repeat the success of the band's major-label debut. Nimrod sold a million copies but won fresh exposure for the group, largely on the strength of the ballad "Good Riddance. By the early 2000s, there was a growing consensus that Green Day's cachet was in decline, as evidenced by the band's slowing album sales. That belief that was put to rest with the release of American Idiot, a multiplatinum, Grammy-winning rock opera with political overtones that restated Green Day as one of the biggest musical acts in the world. Following extensive touring, Green Day recorded a cover of the Skids' "The Saints Are Coming” with U2, which was released to raise awareness for musicians whose lives had been disrupted by Hurricane Katrina. In 2007, the band appeared on both American Idol, where they performed a version of John Lennon's "Working Class Hero” and in The Simpsons Movie. In May 2008, the band issued its first LP, a garage album called Stop Drop and Roll!!!, and went on a brief tour.
Nirvana is widely credited with bringing the sound and spirit of late-'70s punk rock to a mainstream pop audience. In 1991 the Seattle-based trio took the angry, nihilistic message of the Sex Pistols' landmark 1977 single "Anarchy in the U.K." to #6 with its own sarcastic blueprint for frustration, "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Nirvana's reign was tragically cut short slightly more than two years later, on April 5, 1994, when leader Kurt Cobain took his own life following at least one earlier suicide attempt and severe bouts with drug addiction, a chronic stomach ailment, and depression. He was 27. Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic grew up in Aberdeen, Washington, a small logging town 100 miles southwest of Seattle. When Cobain was eight, his secretary mother and auto-mechanic father divorced, leaving him constantly moving from one set of relatives to another. As a child he loved the Beatles, but by nine discovered the heavier music of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Kiss. Cobain met the 6-foot-7-inch Novoselic, son of a local hairdresser, through mutual friend Buzz Osborne of the Aberdeen band the Melvins.In 1987 Cobain and Novoselic, both of whom had long felt alienated from their working-class peers, formed Nirvana and started playing parties at the liberal Evergreen State College in nearby Olympia. The following year, Seattle independent label Sub Pop signed the band and released its first single, “Love Buzz” b/w “Big Cheese.” Nirvana’s debut album, Bleach, recorded for $606.17, came out in 1989 to kudos from the underground-rock community; it sold an initial 35,000 copies, considerable for an indie-label release. With Nevermind, Nirvana succeeded at getting punk to the populace on a grand scale: After an initial shipment of 50,000 copies, the record kept selling, eventually bumping new albums by Michael Jackson, Garth Brooks, U2, and MC Hammer from the top of the chart. Nevermind ultimately sold 10 million copies in the U.S. alone; it also produced another hit, “Come as You Are”. By early 1992, Nirvana’s success was biting back. As “Smells Like Teen Spirit” continued climbing up the charts, Cobain began bemoaning the group’s meteoric rise, worrying that fans were missing the point of Nirvana’s antiestablishment message.The singer overdosed on heroin at his Seattle home. The following month, he was charged with domestic assault after Love summoned the police during an argument over Cobain’s gun collection.Cobain overdosed again, this time in the bathroom of a New York hotel room before a Nirvana show at the Roseland Ballroom. On September 21, Nirvana released In Utero, which debuted at #1 and ultimately produced the Modern Rock radio hits “Heart-Shaped Box” and “All Apologies.” On January 7, 1994, Nirvana performed what would be their last American concert, at the Seattle Center Arena. On February 6, the band departed for a European tour, but after a series of shows in France, Portugal, the former Yugoslavia, Germany, and Italy, decided to take a break, during which Cobain remained in Rome. At 6:30 a.m. on March 4, Love found Cobain unconscious in the couple’s room at Rome’s Excelsior Hotel, the result of an overdose of the tranquilizer Rohypnol. At first deemed an accident, later reports uncovered a suicide note. Cobain remained in a coma for 20 hours. When the Cobains returned to Seattle, things took a turn for the worse. On March 18, police arrived at the Cobain home again after the singer locked himself in a room with a .38-caliber revolver, threatening to kill himself. On March 30, Cobain checked in to the Exodus Recovery Center in L.A., but fled on April 1, after telling staff members he was going outside for a smoke. On April 8, he was found dead in a room above the garage of the couple’s Seattle home, the result of a self-inflicted .20-gauge shotgun wound to his head. For weeks afterward, fans, the news media, MTV, and radio mourned his death. Nirvana’s success changed the course of rock music in the ’90s, cementing the rise of alternative rock and legitimizing the differences in perspective between the earlier baby-boom generation of rock fans and the subsequent so-called Generation X. The band’s impact was also felt by some of Cobain’s own musical heroes, heard in such Cobain tributes as Neil Young’s Sleeps With Angels album and Patti Smith’s song “About a Boy.” Cobain’s expressions of support for women and homosexuals challenged the earlier rock & roll status quo. With his sensitive lyrics and outward frustrations over the disordered state of the world, Cobain brought a new edge and urgency to music.
At First Rock N’ Roll was something that only teenagers loved to listen to. Most if not all of the adults thought that it was garbage and that it was just someone banging on trashcans. But in time Rock M’ Roll started to grow on the adults. They found meaning in the lyrics of the songs, and they could relate to how the musicians were feeling; since they were young at one point. In the 60’s through to the 90’s rock music became a household name. Everyone one in the world practically learned to love it. The bands who are in this genre sung and performed some of the best songs ever written. Present day, rock music is one of the most popular and loved genre’s of all time.
![Origins ,[object Object]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)