What is Rock music?

[moombasista]

What is considered to be rock music these days?

Is it The Rolling Stones? Is it All American Rejects?, Dashboard Confessional?, My Chemical Romance? John Mayor?

Is it hitomi or OLIVIA? ayu?

I've seen people group Madonna, Shakira, Norah Jones and Mary J. Blige as "rock queens"



So what is rock music? Is it anything with guitars? Is it anything that's "hard/now/edgy"?

or could it be everything?

[explodingbird]

It's like how people group "pop" music into a certain style even though "pop" is basically popular in shortened form - Elvis was pop, by these standards. Elvis was also rock and roll for his days.

There are so many styles and facets of each and every genre, and so many fusions that I think definitions are diluted and a tad pointless (pointles but necessary). It's frustrating. What may be rock to one is nothing like it to another, and I hate how people like to think they know the genres inside and out and they alone have a definition of what the "real" sound of a genre is as if they created and evolved it.

Guitars do play a big part in them, electric guitars do at best. I think of big guitars and... I dunno. It varies - there's pop rock, hard rock, classic rock, blues rock, power rock... Melissa Etheridge is blues/pop rock, for example. Pat Benatar was glitzy pop/80's rock. Elvis was rock and roll. Bo Bice was originally southern-fried country/classic rock, but 19 Entertainment made him a pop rocker. Vertical Horizon is pop rock. t.A.T.u. are experimental rock, and even Shakira can tackle adult contemporary/world/modern/pop rock very well (Illegal is very AC-rock). Then you have Liz Phair, indie rock turned somewhat-hard pop-rock turned into low-key folk/AC rock.

It just... differs in so many ways, depends on songs, circumstances... gah, this is a tough one.

Britney and Mary J., although I do love them (Mary especially) aren't rock. Mary is R&B/soul/urban with hip-hop thrown in, although One was, I think thanks to U2's influence (and it being a U2 cover), definitely a power rock/pop song. Britney is dance/R&B/pop, easily.

[Mad_Cactuar]

Illegal is rock? It sure doesn't sound rock, IMO. But if rock means guitars, then I guess yeah, strangely.

I think rock is like Gwen defined it on some MTV advert, the music that makes you start headbangin.

[explodingbird]

No, Illegal technically is a form of rock - soft rock, or adult contemporary rock. Not all rock is loud, trashing, headbanging stuff. There's rock ballads, soft rock... you know, just like there's pop ballads.

[Mad_Cactuar]

But Illegal sounds like funky jazz! I find it hard to even tap my feet to the song. Rock ballads like Simple Kind Of Life by No Doubt however sounds rock enough.

Heh, categorisation. I wish I knew what rock and pop and dance actually means and what songs are what.

[hallelujah_united]

Never really bothered with categorisations much, even though I still have a preference for more rock-tinged songs. But these days, artists are experimenting a lot of making the "borders" between each type of music fuzzy, which makes a lot of songs really hard to catergorise.

[alt.total-loser]

I always imagined rock to have some form of a guitar in it.

[immel]

The origin of genres I think is for easy categorizing in music stores, then radio stations picked it up, everything became themed either this or that way.

Many artists hate being asked what kind of genre their music belongs to, while others proudly announce "I'm making this and that only".

Genres wasn't invented by the artists, it was invented by the people who want to make money on them. If you can make people fans of rock, those people will have a much larger chance of buying anything rock, and not just a certain artists, the stores and recording companies end up selling more.

If you're a fan of rock, you know that you will most likely like other artists called rock.

While there's stereotypes to each kind of music, songs you can definitely place under their various genres, there's also songs that are mixes and blends, or simply completely different.

Genres doesn't have borders, they are what we make them. If anyone say that a song is rock to them, then it is. Saying that any given classical music song is rock might cause a lot of people beating down on you as being wrong, though. Including me.

So... what makes rock?

Rock sound does.

What is rock sound?

I'd say it's heavy guitars, or a catchy guitar riff and then the drums. The drums is what makes it and what I often connect so much to my favorite genre. I love drums, they are the greatest part of many rock/metal songs to me.

Because of all the fighting that has appeared for what belongs to which genre, a million sub-genres has appeared. Trash Metal, Death Metal, Punk, Rock, Hard Rock, Metal, Power Metal, Symphonic Metal, Heavy Metal, Soft Rock, Soft Metal... how long do you want me to go on?

And who decides what music belongs to which of those genres? You.

Rock spired down from other genres. A lot of music contains instruments like guitars, drums and so on, if you play them heavier you will achieve a new sound. Most music was quite soft from the start, the heavier it got the more it sprang off in a new direction, people thought it sounded different and gave it a fresh name. All of a sudden you could rock away instead of jazz away, and whatever is new is cool, no?

To me, my view of genres is 110% correct, I know what music I think belongs to where, and I discover what kind of music makes up new genres almost every day. Every day that I listen to music I refine my view of what I think certain genres is. Every day I discuss with others about music I refine what my view of genres is. That I think my view is 110% correct doesn't mean it doesn't constantly change.

[*Petit*]

I agree with meerkitty. Or something similar sounding, like what you sometimes hear in industrialized songs.

I'm tempted to make a long post on this, but I haven't got the time right now. Because rock isen't just some tool to split up music now a days, it's also a genre with a long, long history, which plays a part in what we see it as today and also explains why everyone has so many different conceptions of it.

Rock has always (at least untill recently, 90s) had this rebellious or outrageous thing to it. Kiss with their costues and make-up, rolling stone, were even more rebellious and rocking than the pop oriented beatles and were and liked by the "bad asses". Smae goes for heavy metal, punk, grunge... And as long as it's kept that way, somewhat not mainstream and heavily tied to a fashion or fad, it's not that hard to categorize it. THe problem surfaces whan you get stuff like "bratz", stream lined produced idol "rock", and particularly in jpop where virtually every combination in sound avaliable is tried out by some artist.

Also, pop has the wondeful ability to turn elements from other forms of music into catchy and somewhat mainstreamish likeable stuff. It's like a sponge that absorbs everything, and when you squeeze it, you don't know what comes out.

We had a discussion on how much "guitar" that had to be present, and how evident it should be in order to call it rock... But it's hard to draw a line. Examples are biyuuden's kacchoize! Japan vs f.ex ayu's GAME. Both use a lot of el guitars all along accompanying all along, both have catchlines in el guitar. Both songs also have very apparant synth elements and no acoustic drums. Still I don't think a lot of people would consider biyuuden's song rock, but a lot of people on this forum seem to think GAME is. ... Kacchoize ! Japan has a totally different beat to it, it's bouncy and the percussion is like in a lot of dance / pop songs, the percussion used in GAME is very different. An important thing of course is also that the image tied up to the song. AYu's wearing latex and a total scary rock band image in the PV, while biyuuden is having really girly cute outfits and doing "some silly dance".

[neokyotodragon]

Originally Posted by meerkitty

I always imagined rock to have some form of a guitar in it.

I think that is the best definition of Rock I have seen...

[Terri]

Rock is anything you want it to be.

I want my rock and roll pure and true to history. The three women on the cover don't do it for me. No woman is a rockstar (at the current moment) in my eyes.

I am rather proud of my narrow-minded views

My only wish is that people would stop embarassing and insulting the history of rock and roll by labeling rap and pop singers/bands rockstars.

[moombasista]

you guys are so hot! I love your posts!

All of you made some awesome points

It's like sometimes when you go to buy a CD
and you don't know the artist and they ask "what kind of music is it?"
and you're like uh.... um... uhhh... rock? LOL

(I forgot to mention that issue of rollingstone is old LOL)

[spookshow]

Originally Posted by moombasista

It's like sometimes when you go to buy a CD
and you don't know the artist and they ask "what kind of music is it?"
and you're like uh.... um... uhhh... rock? LOL

yeah i do that when i'm looking for cds of artists people havent' heard of, just so they have an idea of the genre in the general sense

i see artists like britney or shakira as more pop-rock (if at all...)

i think "rock" is in most circumstances just a generalisation for all those various types of music/songs that have rock elements -- like the electric guitar. I usually specify an area (e.g. grunge rock, heavy metal, industrial) when labelling songs for my ipod rather than just saying "rock" -- because there's so many varieties!

[slashess]

rock music...

...rock music is...

Led Zeppelin
Black Sabbath
Jimi Hendrix
Metallica
Nirvana
Van Halen
Soundgarden
Alice in Chains
Pearl Jam
Rage Against the Machine
Nine Inch Nails

These are the bands that MADE rock and it saddens me because they should be getting the acknowledgement they deserve. Led Zeppelin is probably the first hard rock band of its time. They inspired so many artists today, including Ayu. Jimi Hendrix is probably the greatest guitarist of all time, no one can match up to him...it's a know fact . Nirvana started the grunge scene and ended the glam metal phase, and he should be noticed for that as well. Then there's Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor revolutionized Industrial rock, no one else can do it better. and then there's Rage Against the Machine, their powerful lyrics and music can make anyone do anything. Last, Soundgarden...the singer is AMAZING! No one else can sound like him...and that's the truth...

So yeah, this is rock music. I had no better way to write it down so I wrote down all the artists that make rock and made it well...

...because I'm the true hard-rock chick on this forum

[*Petit*]

^
Rock has deeper roots than that though, the name rock and roll first appeared in teh 50s, it was a smash between a lot of genres, mostly at first played by black musicians.

[Piccolo]

Does it really matter what genre music falls under? Saying that you only listen to 'x' music really limits yourself in my opinion. You're going to miss out on a lot of good stuff. Genres, like some have said early, are just public labels on the music for its current time. That suggests that whatever music category we place music in today, may change in the future.

As for a definition of what common rock is, it's basically popular music with an electric guitar and some kind of beat, possibly suplemented with other instruments. I think.

[Jayee19]

Like others have said, I identify a rock song by the use of guitars. That's why there is so many types of sub-genres for it. When considering Slashess list of rock singers and bands, you can relegate them to any of the many different sub-genres. They represent an aspect of what it is to be rock, but none of them are nowhere close to defining the whole genre.

[moombasista]

Originally Posted by slashess

...because I'm the true hard-rock chick on this forum

of course you are

I guess rock is whatever you want it to be. I think someone said that rock music was changing.

Or like hip-hop is the new rock or something.

[slashess]

well...i think by rock changing they mean that the majority of it doesnt have the solos, the metaphors, and the psychedalic stuff(except Tool maybe ) anymore. Most of it nowdays kinda sounds the same...

[s1012h]

to me, rock is like incubus
audioslave
metallica
nirvana
and all that jazz
just the genre of music that makes you rock your head around to
and scream/yell along with

ayu's Secret is very rock-oriented too
just a little more "tame", but still rock, IMO
especially 1 LOVE
that's easily her strongest rock song on her discography
her voice is strong, overly strong