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Rock
,→Sub-Genres
* Alternative or Nu Metal - Appeared in the late 90's as an outgrowth of alternative rock, particularly grunge. It incorporates the more downtrodden vocal stylings and modern sound of alternative rock with the riffing and rhythms of heavy metal. Yet it goes further by favoring down-tuned guitars and frequent usage of completely screamed vocals. Many groups also incorporated rapped vocals. While starting out as an underground movement, it eventually became mainstream and lost much of its identity in the process. Examples: Korn, Limp Bizkit, Deftones, Disturbed
* Black Metal - Incorporates the blast beats and extreme sound of death metal with synth/symphonic elements and neoclassical songwriting. Guitars are distorted and provide thick textures such as in doom metal, but without any emphasis on down-tuning. Vocals are often screamed and snarled. Examples: Cradle of Filth
* Blues-Rock - Although all rock and roll is strongly influenced by (and in fact an outgrowth of) blues, blues-rock is a term that came about to describe artists whose compositions were structurally based solidly in blues but used rock instrumentation and rhythms. Examples: B.B. King, George Thorogood, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jeff Beck, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Gary Moore, Eric Clapton
* Classic Rock - With rock and roll expanding into a number of sub-genres as early as the late 60's, the term classic rock was created to describe rock groups of the 60's, 70's, and even some 80's. It generally refers to the more popular and mainstream artists
* Death Metal - A more modern subgenre of heavy metal, death metal features a very extreme sound and style employing fast dissonant guitars usually playing in diminished scales, gutteral vocals, disjointed rhythms, and blast beat drumming. Examples: Cannibal Corpse, Dying Fetus
* Grunge - A sub-genre of alternative, this was almost a protest of 80's music, having a kind of punk element. It replaced 80's cheesiness with quirkiness, featuring uncomfortable screaming, crying, whining, noise, or other unsettling soundscapes. Rather than focus on poppy one-line hooks in choruses, grunge would focus on depressing or brooding melodies, often with double-tracked or processed vocals. Guitars and bass were often distorted using a raucous fuzz distortion. Examples: Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Veruca Salt
* Hair Metal (80's Metal) - Continuing the popularity of 70's Heavy Metal, Hair Metal focused on making the extremes of heavy metal more extreme: heavier distortion on guitars, larger and more intricate riffs, heavily technical and swift guitar solo's, high-pitched shrieking vocals, and cutting edge production techniques involving tape delays, rich simulated reverb, and synthesized drums. Examples: Extreme, Def Leppard, Poison, Warrant, Motley Crue
* Hard Rock - Hard Rock basically started out as interchangeable with Heavy Metal, describing the rock bands of the 70's that favored using greater distorted guitar and dirty vocals than their contemporaries. As time went on, heavy metal evolved into a number of more extreme sub-genres, diverging from and leaving the original blues-based sound in kind of an ambiguous label, which is now called Hard Rock. New Hard Rock groups were popular throughout the 70's and 80's, fizzled out in the 90's, but have been regaining more and more popularity since. Examples: AC/DC, Mountain
* Hardcore (Punk) - An outgrowth of the 70's punk rock movement that incorporated the more extreme of metal elements, favoring rhythm over melody and abandoning common song structures. Vocals were often screamed or shouted and guitars were heavily distorted. Examples: Black Flag, Hatebreed
* Heavy Metal - Heavy Metal began in the 70's with groups that pushed rock and roll into a harder edge, featuring heavily distorted guitars, more involved drums, and screeching vocals. Rather than establish simple shuffles, the guitars would establish tonality through more complex riffs. Examples: Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath, Judas Preist
* Instrumental Guitar Rock - With the appearance of exalted guitar players such as Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen, and Randy Rhoads, rock began to place higher value on virtuosic caliber guitar playing in the 80's, often known as ''shredding''. Some players branched out to release solo records that had no or little vocals, instead using lead guitar throughout the songs serving to play the songs' melodies, which were often embellished as though every song was a giant guitar solo. The general song-writing followed the inspiration of Hair Metal, which is what most of these musicians were playing before starting their solo projects. Songwriting featured similar dramatic crescendos, sensationalized choruses, reverb-laden rhythms, and upbeat bluesy riffs; and many albums had contrasting ballads. Examples: Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert, Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai
* Melodic Death Metal - An outgrowth of death metal found particularly in Scandinavia, this sub-genre incorporated far more melody in guitars and sometimes vocals, as well as neo-classical elements into songwriting in contrast to death metal's atonal or dissonant scales. Examples: In Flames, Soilwork
* Metalcore - Another sub-genre of metal, metalcore focused on uniting the elements of thrash-metal inspired guitar riffs and drumming with the modernity, aggressiveness, and rhythms of hardcore, often