Hard rock

Hard rock or heavy rock is a heavier subgenre of rock music typified by vocals and electric guitars that are aggressive and distorted relative to traditional rock music. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic, and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard rock music was produced by the Kinks, the Who, the Yardbirds, the Rolling Stones, Cream, Vanilla Fudge, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In the late 1960s, bands such as Blue Cheer, the Jeff Beck Group, Iron Butterfly, Led Zeppelin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Golden Earring, Steppenwolf, Grand Funk Railroad, Free, and Deep Purple also produced hard rock.

The genre developed into a major form of popular music in the 1970s, with the Who, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple being joined by Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, Kiss, Queen, AC/DC, Thin Lizzy and Van Halen. During the 1980s, some hard rock bands moved away from their hard rock roots and more towards pop rock. Established bands made a comeback in the mid-1980s and hard rock reached a commercial peak in the 1980s with glam metal bands such as Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard and Poison, as well as the rawer sounds of Guns N' Roses which followed with great success in the later part of that decade.

Hard rock began losing popularity with the commercial success of R&B, hip-hop, urban pop, grunge, and later Britpop in the 1990s. Despite this, many post-grunge bands adopted a hard rock sound, and the 2000s saw renewed interest in established bands, revival attempts, and new hard rock bands. In the 2000s, only a few hard rock bands from the 1970s and 1980s managed to sustain highly successful recording careers.