In the late 1960s, hard rock developed into a genre of its own. This was partly due to the influence of ‘acid rock’, the more psychedelically inspired variant of blues rock. One of the precursors was the British band Cream, consisting of seasoned musicians such as Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. Their album ‘Fresh Cream’ (1966) is a prototype of hard rock.
The group made four albums between 1966 and 1968 and then the members went a way of their own. You can see the three gentlemen here at a reunion in 2005. Would you be interested; you can watch and listen to the entire concert via this link.
If you wish, you can see a recording of ‘Sunshine of your love’ HERE, at their farewell concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 1968.
Hard rock
In the 1970s, hard rock began to sound increasingly harsh. Think of early examples like the Who, Deep purple, Steppenwulf (‘Born to be wild’) and Iron Butterfly (‘In-a-gada-da-vida’). Later, Black Sabbath, Aerosmith and Van Halen, among others, followed. Other examples include Def Leppard (Great Britain), the German Scorpions, AC/DC from Australia, the Swedish band Europe and in the Netherlands Golden Earring.
In the 1990s, hard rock became one of the most dominant forms of popular music. Guns N’Roses and Bon Jovi occupied prominent places on the charts for years. Also attracting a wide audience were Bruce Springsteen, Southside Johnny and the Ashbury Jukes, Tom Patty and Bob Seger, musicians who often dwelled on social problems and urban decay. Heart was the first female hard rock band to spawn top-10 albums. Listen to both Heart frontwomen here, a recording from 1976.
English band Led Zeppelin made art-rock out of hard rock with the song ‘Stairway to heaven’. Many music critics consider it the best rock song ever. What follows is a recording from a reunion in 2007, so about 35 years after the first performance and 27 years after the members of the band broke up. It starts with an acoustic part to gradually swell into hard rock. It ends with an a cappella sung line “And she’s buying a stairway to heaven”. The lyrics are by Robert Plant and the music by Jimmy Page.
You can see the moved Jimmy Page and Robert Plant back HERE at a concert presented to them in the presence of President Obama and his wife Michelle in 2011. The ladies of Heart sing and play ‘Stairway to heaven’, accompanied by choir and orchestra.
Led Zeppelin has been dogged until 2020 by a lawsuit from a Los Angeles rock band that felt the intro to ‘Stairway to heaven’ bore a strong resemblance to that one of its own songs. It took until 2020 for this claim to be dismissed. In another lawsuit, the plaintiff claimed that if you play some passages backwards, the trained ear can hear satanic messages. This claim was also rejected. The judge questioned the existence of a record player with a turntable that could spin backwards.
Heavy metal
Bands like Deep Purple, Steppenwulf and Black Sabbath are considered as the first “real” heavy metal groups and played with even more volume. Some employed occult lyrics and bizarre attire. You can watch and listen to a recording of Black Sabbath HERE.
Not melody or rhythm, but timbre, ‘soundscape’ and volume should give the listener an adrenaline rush. Later, it turned out that heavy metal’s chord progressions are much more complex than at first glance. Strange as it may sound, classical composers like Bach and Vivaldi had a major influence on the genre. Many musicians had conservatory training and played their instruments in a virtuoso manner.
Here, Steppenwulf plays ‘Born to be wild’ in 1986, a song made famous by the film Easy Rider.
Gothic rock
From the early 1990s, metal groups increasingly adopted gothic elements. Gothic rock is instantly recognisable for its darker sound, with the use of mostly minor chords, reverb, dark arrangements, and dramatic and melancholic melodies. Goth rock was fueled by Gothic literature associated with themes of sadness, nihilism, dark romanticism, tragedy, melancholy and morbidity. Gothic influences are not limited to metal and punk. They appear in songs by Velvet undergroud (‘All tomorrow’s parties’) and Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering heights’.Â
Symphonic rock
Metal bands regularly use violins and choral singing, and sometimes entire symphony orchestras support their performances. An older symphonic metal song is ‘Dies irae’ by the band Believer on their 1990 album ‘Sanity Obscure’. In this song, metal and classical music merge seamlessly. They were not the only ones: Swedish band Theron also made use of a live orchestra and classical composition techniques during the ‘Miskolc Experience’, which even became more prominent than their metal roots. The band performed with choir and orchestra at the Miskolc Opera Festival in Hungary (2007). Deep purple (Concerto for group and orchestra), Moody Blues (Days of future passed) and Black Sabbath (‘Spiral Architect’) preceded them.
Dutch band Within temptation followed the same path from 2000 In their third album, “The silent force” they played with a full choir and orchestra. Music critic Chat Bower speaks of the optimal balance between the “melody and hooks of mainstream rock, the depth and complexity of classical music and the dark edge of gothic metal”.
Listen to Within Temptation along with the Metropole Orchestra here.
Later, the group omitted ‘heavy metal’ vocals altogether. Like HERE in a performance by singer Sharon den Adel (Within temptation) together with Anneke van Giersbergen (The Gathering). They sing ‘Somewhere’, also with the Metropole orchestra.
Finnish band Nightwish, featuring Dutch singer Floor Jansen, also went in the same direction. They use electronics to produce an orchestral sound. The song ”The phantom of the opera”, with a guest role for Henk Poort peaked on the Dutch charts.
The last band I mention in Dutch group Epica, with the album “The divine conspiracy“(2007). This group also plays along with choir and orchestra here. Their music has been described as combining “a dark oppressive gothic atmosphere with bombastic and symphonic music. This is best expressed in the suite ‘Orchestral Medley’. You can listen and watch that one here.
This album also features their version of Carl Orff’s ‘O Fortuna’. The band, which has existed since 2002, revolves around singer Simone Simons and composer, singer (‘grunter’) and guitarist Mark Jansen. The band has had many performances worldwide.
Metal is still popular. Among the first 20 songs on the Dutch NPO top 2000 is four metal songs: in sixth place ‘Stairway to heaven’ by Led Zeppelin, in ninth place Metallica with ‘Nothing else matters’, in 15de place November rain by Guns ‘N Roses and in 17de place Child in time by Deep Purple. These groups did increase their audience base. The members of Metallica cut their hair. The audience got older and increasingly consisted of women. Also the variety of styles increased. Probably because of this, in the early 1980s, 20% of all albums sold in the US were metal, or what passed for that at the time.
Much of the furore was created by US band Evanescence, led by singer Amy Lee. The group sold more than 20 million albums and is one of the most successful bands of the 21ste century. Apart from ‘metal’, the group also plays ballads, as HERE in ‘My heart is broken’. Essentially, the band’s songs are an outgrowth of Amy’s love of classical music and her desire to express herself in contrasting styles. HERE, the group plays ‘Bring me to life’.
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