Last Updated on December 30, 2025 by Christian Adams
I took a break from music and blogging while I finished writing Year of the Dragon & Everything After, the fourth and final book in my Lunar New Years series. I’m back with the letter H in the rock genres explainer program, and it’s a deceptive letter. There are fewer than 10 verified legacy genres that start with ‘H’, but cornerstone styles have shaped our present culture. Let’s dig into the rock genres beginning with H.
Hair metal
| Origin: | Mid-1980s California glam, metal, and hard rock |
| Peak popularity | 1982–1991 |
| Defining artists: | Warrant, Poison, Bon Jovi, Guns N’ Roses, Cinderella, White Lion, Mötley Crüe |
| Exemplary album: | Poison, Look What the Cat Dragged In (1986) |
In the early 1980s, heavy metal was headed in two different directions. Metallica and Slayer pushed thrash metal toward the heavy end of the spectrum. On the other end of the spectrum, glam metal (or hair metal), depending on your tolerance) took over MTV with eyeliner, big hooks, and songs about sex, partying, and heartbreak. Mötley Crüe, Poison, and Ratt made metal flashy and accessible, for better or worse.
Hard rock
| Origin: | Mid-1960s rock n’ roll and blues |
| Peak popularity | 1965–present |
| Defining artists: | The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Who, Deep Purple, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, Jane’s Addiction, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots |
| Exemplary album: | Led Zeppelin, II (1969) |
If I had to summarize hard rock in one sentence, I would say, “Distorted guitars, loud drums, and the singer is going for it.” But when I say it like that, the Foo Fighters could be the epitome of hard rock, and they were, for a while, kind of, but… In its purest form, hard rock appears to be blues rock music played louder (and faster) than generally presumed necessary.
In the mid-1960s, most first-generation American and British blues and rock bands wore matching suits and posed like the chess club on album covers. They made energetic but ultimately disposable music. The next generation of bands, heavily influenced by the Beatles and the Stones, began to merge the energy of rock n’ roll with the soul and grit of blues, drawing influences from R&B, pop, folk, and psychedelic rock. The approach was louder and heavier; the aesthetic was sheer machismo. In perspective, the Beatles wrote a few songs that rocked pretty hard, but you couldn’t call them hard rock.
“You Really Got Me” by the Kinks (1965) is one of the can’t-miss landmarks on the way to the kingdom of hard rock, which, in my opinion, is still in the embryonic stage between 1965–67, when bands like The Sonics, The Who, and the Yardbirds were pushing the envelope or expanding the horizons of loudness, the key element of the genre.
What Do We Mean By Loud?
What do we mean by hard rock is loud? If you’re listening to a record and it sounds like every instrument is trying to be the noisiest part of the song, you’re probably listening to hard rock. The guitars are distorted and aggressive. The drums are pounding. The bass is thundering. And the singer is somewhere near the top of his range at all times. That last bit is hyperbole, but you get the drift.
Cream is considered by many musicians and critics to be the first real “hard rock band” when they showed up in 1967 with “Sunshine of Your Love” and redefined the meaning of loudness. Others, like myself, believe that Jimi Hendrix owns the title of first hard rock artist. We’ll get to him shortly.
Many bands drove the hard rock movement in the late ’60s and early ’70s, including but not limited to: Vanilla Fudge, Blue Cheer, Iron Butterfly, Grand Funk Railroad, and the Jeff Beck Group. However, like all cornerstone genres of rock, hard rock went through stylistic changes and phases of popularity. Bands started pushing rock n’ roll into heavier, more aggressive territory. Powerful guitar riffs, slamming drums, and big choruses helped to bridge the stylistic gaps between pop-rock, bluesy classic rock, and heavier metal, offering gritty, muscular songs perfect for stadiums.
More Style Than Substance, In Some Cases
The term “hard rock” came to describe a middle ground between pop or standard rock, but not quite as extreme or niche as heavy metal. It thrived on riffs, attitude, and hooks that could fill arenas. There was an element of bravado and conquest to it, often rooted in blues and boogie, but with a more aggressive edge. Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” and Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” are catchy but crushing, rough around the edges, built to be played loud.
In the late 1970s, bands like Kiss, Van Halen, Alice Cooper, and Ted Nugent turned it into a spectacle, where the volume matched the hair and the extended guitar solos became a predictable feature, not a flaw. AC/DC kept it simple with four-on-the-floor, while Queen went the opposite direction with glam and grandeur. Meanwhile, Thin Lizzy, Scorpions, and Rainbow showed how international the sound had become. For many of these bands, putting on a good show was more important than songcraft or performance.
The 1980s brought a glossy, radio-ready version of hard rock to the mainstream. That’s where arena rock and glam metal bands like Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, and Def Leppard packed in pop hooks and power ballads, often labeled metal but more accurately sitting at the hard rock table with extra hairspray. Even Guns N’ Roses, one of the last great hard rock acts of that era, were degenerate dirtbags who wrote a handful of songs with enough melody to sell millions (and I’m being generous with the “handful of songs” reference. They have three good songs. Is that a handful?).
The End of the Classic Hard Rock Era
For the sake of simplicity, we’re gonna use the term “grunge” for a while, but we’re really talking about alternative hard rock, which is another discussion. When grunge exploded in the early ’90s, hard rock took a shift in style and attitude, away from solos and excess, toward emotion and authenticity. The new wave of alternative hard rock regrouped with Jane’s Addiction and the Pixies. Bands like Alice in Chains and Soundgarden had one foot in grunge and the other firmly in hard rock’s riff-based power. Meanwhile, Stone Temple Pilots and Bush kept the genre alive under the post-grunge umbrella.
The 2000s brought new blood. Queens of the Stone Age made hard rock weird and sexy again. Bands like Foo Fighters kept the butt rock sound alive on rock radio with big choruses and loud guitars. Plenty of bands found success in this decade: Rage Against the Machine, The Black Crowes, Pearl Jam, Neil Young, Deftones, Audioslave, Tool, Stone Sour, Disturbed, Them Crooked Vultures, et al., Across the world, bands like The Hellacopters (Sweden), Airbourne (Australia), and Band-Maid (Japan) kept the hard rock flag flying.
The End of Chart Domination
Hard rock in the 2020s might not be dominating the charts the way it once did, but it’s morphed into a backbone genre the way punk rock became alternative. You’ve got new-school revivalists like Dirty Honey, Greta Van Fleet, and Rival Sons unironically ripping off Zeppelin and Aerosmith. Royal Blood and Highly Suspect keep things sleek and modern. Even veterans like The Pretty Reckless and Halestorm are cranking out some of their heaviest material yet.
If a being from another planet showed up in my office and asked me to give him/her/them a comprehensive but crash course on hard rock, from its humble origins to its current state, here are the 10 albums I would play for my new alien friend (and why). Please keep in mind that I don’t necessarily like every album on the list, i.e., some are not personal favorites.
10 Essential Hard Rock Albums
1. Jimi Hendrix – Are You Experienced? (1967)
Every rock star from Pete Townshend to Keith Richards will tell you that Jimi Hendrix didn’t just move the rock n’ roll goalposts, he dismantled the entire stadium. “Purple Haze” and “Foxy Lady” were the two heaviest songs ever to hit the radio airwaves.
Fun fact: “Sunshine of Your Love” was written after Jack Bruce saw Hendrix in concert. Cream guitarist Eric Clapton elaborated in a 1988 Rolling Stone magazine interview:
“He [Hendrix] played this gig that was blinding. I don’t think Jack [Bruce] had really taken him in before … and when he did see it that night, after the gig, he went home and came up with the riff. It was strictly a dedication to Jimi. And then we wrote a song on top of it.”
Most classic rock albums have a few strategically sequenced big cuts, and get progressively less interesting. Are You Experienced? is one of those rare records that doesn’t have a single weak spot, it’s a type of lightning in a bottle.
2. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin II (1969)
Three words: “Whole Lotta Love”. A textbook example of blues-based riffage, thunderous grooves, excessive machismo, and musicality that still sounds amazing today.
Like Are You Experienced? Led Zeppelin II has zero filler and one of only three drum solos in rock (“Moby Dick”) that anybody should sit through. [“Toad” by Ginger Baker (Fresh Cream (1966) and “YYZ” by Neil Peart (Exit..Stage Left (1981) are the other two acceptable drum solos.]
But seriously, this record also contains “What Is and What Should Never Be” and “Ramble On”, two brilliant displays of dynamic range. They could be tuff and tender, oftentimes in the same song. And John Bonham’s drumming changed the world. That is not hyperbole.
3. The Who – Who’s Next (1971)
It opens with “Baba O’Reilly”, one of the greatest musical “mic drops” ever recorded, a massive “Top that, fuckers” to anybody in the game. It closes with “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, so the only band to top The Who was The Who.
For my money, Who’s Next is better than Led Zeppelin IV, also released in 1971.
4. Queen – A Night at the Opera (1975)
A Night at the Opera gives us a sample of multiple splinter genres like progressive rock, glam rock, art rock, and baroque pop, which folded nicely into the hard rock spectrum. Produced by Roy Thomas Baker, the king of 1970s hard rock production.
5. Van Halen – Van Halen I (1978)
Hard rock was thriving in 1977–78, but we needed a new guitar hero. Hendrix was long gone, and we’d already heard the best of what Page, Beck, Iommi, Townshend, et al., could do. Enter Edward Van Halen.
Likewise, our lead vocalists were getting complacent. Freddie Mercury, Robert Plant, Mick Jagger, and Roger Daltrey were reduced to fucking pedestrians the first time David Lee Roth did the flying splits off the drum riser.
Van Halen’s debut album is a game-changing return to the fundamentals of hard rock. With minimal overdubs, it’s a WYSIWYG record that nobody was prepared to hear. Ironically, the cover of “You Really Got Me” brings us full circle to the origins of hard rock.
6. AC/DC – Highway to Hell (1979)
At this point in the Hard Rock 101 crash course, I would take a moment to stress the importance of AC/DC and explain that you could pretty much pick any AC/DC record from 1975 to 1981 and it’s gonna produce the same results.
We’re going with Highway to Hell (instead of Back in Black (1980) because Bon Scott.
7. Rush – Moving Pictures (1980)
Once again, we hear the merger of progressive and hard rock in one cozy setting, but I think the coolest thing about Rush and this album is…that’s only three guys making that noise. Moving Pictures also represents the last great album of the original progressive rock movement before neo-prog takes over.
8. Def Leppard – Pyromania (1983)
Hard rock entered its MTV era with this absolute blockbuster of an album that’s poppier than hard, but still gets us where we need to go with hot cuts like “Rock of Ages” and “Photograph”.
9. Guns N’ Roses – Appetite for Destruction (1987)
Hard rock took a breather when punk and new wave arrived in the late 1970s, and heavy metal filled the gap. By 1985, David Lee Roth had left Van Halen. All our favorite hard rock bands (Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, The Who, etc.) were either done or making bullshit records. Hair metal from the likes of Motley Crue and Poison ruled the roost. And then Appetite for Destruction came along.
Even though I think Appetite for Destruction has three good songs and the rest of it sucks, those three songs, “Welcome to the Jungle”, “Sweet Child O’ Mine”, and “Paradise City”, brought hard rock back from the dead.
10. (Tie) Jane’s Addiction – Ritual de lo Habitual (1990)
The last great alternative hard rock album before the explosion of grunge, Ritual de lo Habitual puts a stake in the heart of rock.
10. (Tie) Soundgarden – Superunknown (1994)
In my opinion, Superunknown is the last great hard rock album ever made.
Hardcore punk
| Origin: | Late-1970s punk rock |
| Peak popularity | 1979–1990 |
| Defining artists: | Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags |
| Cornerstone cuts: | “Straight Edge”, Minor Threat; “Rise Above”, Black Flag; “Nazi Punks Fuck Off”, Dead Kennedys |
Hardcore punk refuses to be defined in a single sentence. It’s a genre, mindset, fashion trend, and political ideology. We can’t even agree on when punk started and who started it. So, let’s concentrate on punk in the popular consciousness. If we’re being honest, the Sex Pistols were a flash of punk rock chaos and completely unsustainable. For that brief period, they were manufacturing anarchy, tearing shit down facetiously, silly rebellion, etc. One album, one tour, and it was over. Kinda punk rock, if you ask me.
For two solid years (1978–79), The Clash were “the only band that mattered.” In the late 1970s and early ‘80s, a new wave of punk bands emerged from the American underground, each with an agenda for longevity: Tap into the anger, rage, and frustration of (mostly) adolescent men, modeled after the first two Clash albums. Unfortunately, nobody bothered to ask, “Why would you want to do that?”
No Love Songs
Hardcore strips The Clash (1977) down to the most abrasive, fastest, and angriest form. Songs are short, frantic, and usually scream about social issues, alienation, or just pure rage. No love songs. Hardcore really caught fire in the early ’80s, becoming a lifestyle with DIY ethics, all-ages shows, and anti-everything. Skateboarding was involved. Mosh pits, slam dancing, crowd surfing, and stage diving were derived from the hardcore punk scene.
Defining bands include Black Flag, Minor Threat, and Bad Brains. Minor Threat’s Complete Discography (1989) is pure, undiluted hardcore: fast, furious, and over soon enough. But for my money, the first three Dead Kennedys records are the epitome of hardcore.
Hardcore punk inspired countless subgenres, including (but not limited to) alternative rock, black metal, crustcore, death metal, emo, grunge, noise rock, nu metal, post-hardcore, queercore, screamo, skate punk, speed metal, and thrash metal
Heartland rock
| Origin: | Mid-1970s rock with hints of country rock and folk rock |
| Peak popularity | 1975–1990 |
| Defining artists: | Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Tom Petty, Bob Seger, Steve Earle and Joe Ely |
| Definitive song: | “Small Town”, by John Cougar Mellencamp |
Heartland rock is earnest, straightforward rock ‘n’ roll that focuses on working-class themes, open highways, and American life. It’s anthemic, emotionally clichéd, Bob Seger’s “Like a Rock”, blasting out of a Ford F-150. [Sound of eagle screeching!]. Denim wallpaper, barroom dustups, and gas station coffee. The Nowheresville dream set to guitar and the occasional harmonica for that true “down home” feel— melodic, no-nonsense, and steeped in small-town reality. It resonated with blue-collar people trying to get by, get laid, or drive fast enough to relive some cherished high school memory.
Heartland found its audience in the late ’70s and ’80s, mainly in the U.S. Midwest and Rust Belt, also the birthplace of those “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” chants that make the rest of us look like uneducated chimps. Springsteen’s Born to Run (1975) is the quintessential misunderstood heartland rock album—cinematic, hopeful, yet so full of desperation, ironically, to get one’s ass out of the fuckin’ heartland as soon as possible. And it’s set in New Jersey! Born in the U.S.A. (1984) is where things go “hometown hero.”
Conversely, John Cougar Mellencamp’s Scarecrow (1985), and “Small Town” are far more emblematic of the genre. Tom Petty and Jackson Browne don’t really belong in the genre, but they get big love in the heartland, and I don’t think their bank accounts give a shit one way or the other.
Heavy hardcore
| Origin: | Mid-1990s hardcore punk and metal |
| Peak popularity | 1996–2005 |
| Defining artists: | Earth Crisis, Hatebreed, Terror, Integrity |
| Exemplary album: | Earth Crisis, Destroy the Machines (1995) |
Heavy hardcore (also called metallic hardcore) blends the militant, punishing aggression of hardcore punk with the crushing, metallic djent riffage of heavy metal. It’s slower, heavier, and often more mosh-ready than traditional hardcore, whatever “mosh-ready” means. This sound began brewing in the late ’80s and early ’90s, especially around New York and Boston.
Like most “hardcore” genres, they have a strict no-bullshit policy. Everything hits harder, the breakdowns are lower, the riffs chug with menace, and the vocals lean into growl territory without fully crossing into death metal. Hatebreed, Terror, Integrity, and Earth Crisis helped define the sound, often adding straight-edge or socially charged lyrics into the mix. Hatebreed’s “I Will Be Heard” is a full-on war cry that demands a mosh pit.
Heavy metal
| Origin: | Late 1960s British hard rock |
| Peak popularity | 1970–present |
| Defining artists: | Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Slayer, Morbid Angel, Gojira |
| Exemplary album: | Black Sabbath, Paranoid (1970) |
Long before heavy metal (aka metal) became a sprawling genre with subgenres so niche they sound like inside jokes, it started with a few bands who decided that rock n’ roll could go darker, louder, heavier, and slower. In the late ’60s and early ’70s, a handful of British bands reinvented and subverted the blues-based foundation of hard rock into muscular riffs, soaring vocals, gymnastic guitar solos, and often dark or epic lyrical themes.
In the Beginning: So Spooky, So Scary
We can trace metal’s origins back to the loudest, darkest corners of late ’60s rock, but pioneers of what we consider “heavy metal” today include Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden. They produced a more dramatic, intense, and often theatrical hard rock experience with tales of apocalypse, mythology, or just screaming about drugs. They also set the template in the ’70s and early ’80s, as the genre exploded into thrash, doom, power metal, and more.
Black Sabbath tuned their guitars down and filled their songs with ominous tritones of dread, doom, and evil. Paranoid (1970) pretty much wrote the script for music with a sense of darkness hanging over everything. “War Pigs” was a warning bell. Something new had arrived. Led Zeppelin gets some credit for bringing a certain “sonic weight” to hard rock with mysticism and sex, and Deep Purple fused classical precision with sheer pomposity, but both bands played hard rock with metal characteristics.
The New Wave of British Heavy Metal
By the time Judas Priest stripped the blues out and added speed and leather, and Iron Maiden injected twin-guitar harmonies and tales of war, history, and mythology, metal had taken on a distinct personality—flambuoyant, ambitious, and proudly cocksure. Where punk tried to strip music of its indulgence and excess, metal doubled down on complexity, image, and bravado. It was never for the faint-hearted, and that was the point. Priest’s British Steel (1980) is one of the hallmark achievements of the New Wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM).
By the ’80s, metal had mutated, fractured, and spread across scenes and continents. In the U.S., the West Coast birthed the thrash metal movement with faster, meaner, and more aggressive bands like Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax (the so-called “Big Four”) delivered breakneck riffs, machine-gun drumming, and lyrics that dove into war, politics, and personal demons (haha!).
An Ocean of Sub-Genres
The ’90s got complicated as grunge momentarily pushed metal out of the spotlight, but it didn’t disappear; it just got weirder and heavier. Death metal (think: Death, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse) turned up the brutality with guttural vocals and blast beats. Black metal, especially in Norway, embraced lo-fi aesthetics, corpse paint, and icy atmospheres (Mayhem, Emperor, Darkthrone). Then came nu-metal—a controversial but commercially massive wave that fused metal with hip-hop, industrial, and alt-rock (Korn, Slipknot, Deftones, System of a Down). The gatekeepers hated it, but the kids ate it up.
Again, if somebody came from another planet and wanted to learn about heavy metal music, these are the 10 records I would play for them, in order:
10 Essential Heavy Metal Albums
1. Black Sabbath – Paranoid (1970)
The foundation of heavy metal is found on Paranoid (and to a lesser extent, on their debut album), and entirely within the first minute of Track 1, “War Pigs”.
2. Deep Purple – Deep Purple in Rock (1970)
I fuckin’ despise this band, but Deep Purple in Rock was an important stepping stone on the road to heavy metal as we know it.
3. Judas Priest – Sad Wings of Destiny (1976)
A key album in the NWOBHM, Sad Wings of Destiny is one of the first that really leans into the operatic vocals, gothic themes, and technical dexterity. “Victim of Changes” is the harbinger of all metal riffage to come.
4. Motörhead – Overkill (1979)
Many people might pick their next album, Ace of Spades (1980), but I think this record designed the blueprint for thrash metal and biker metal.
5. Judas Priest – British Steel (1980)
The greatest thing about Judas Priest is that nobody, not one knucklehead in a sleeveless leather jacket, recognized the homoeroticism of the band and the genre. Judas Priest is responsible for some of the gayest music I’ve heard this side of Judy Garland.
6. Ozzy Osbourne – Blizzard of Ozz (1980)
Ozzy Osbourne‘s first solo album, Blizzard of Ozz featured instant classic pop metal tracks and the guitar work of Randy Rhoads. “Crazy Train” is the first pop metal song to reach mainstream success.
7. Iron Maiden – The Number of the Beast (1982)
The first so-called “Satanic” British heavy metal band.
8. Dio – Holy Diver (1983)
Probably the first American heavy metal record worth listening to.
9. Metallica – Master of Puppets (1986)
Master of Puppets is widely considered THE masterpiece of thrash metal, known for its intricate songwriting and technical prowess.
10. Slayer – Reign in Blood (1986)
In my opinion, Reign in Blood markes the end of the original “heavy metal era.”
Today, metal is both more extreme and more inclusive than ever. You’ve got bands pushing technicality to insane levels (Gojira, Animals as Leaders, Meshuggah) and others leaning into simplicity (Deafheaven, Loathe, Zeal & Ardor). There’s progressive metal, doom, post-metal, metalcore, folk metal, drone, and hybrids forever. Code Orange blends industrial rage with hardcore chaos. Spiritbox brings melody and atmosphere to djent-heavy riffs.
Horror punk
| Origin: | 1950s rockabilly, punk, metal, and cheesy horror films |
| Peak popularity | 1979–present? |
| Defining artists: | The Misfits, Samhain, AFI |
| Must-hear songs: | “Astro Zombies” or “Die, Die My Darling” by the Misfits |
The cheesy, over-the-top theatrics of horror punk are descended from artists such as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Screaming Lord Sutch, Alice Cooper, and Black Sabbath. Ozzy Osbourne’s solo career was based on the same campy themes. The Cramps and the Damned were early adopters of the horror aesthetic; however, their music veered in a different direction toward gothabilly and psychobilly.
The Misfits were the first band to marry 1950s rock ’n’ roll with B-movie bloodshed. Punk rock in a haunted house, essentially. They dressed like grave robbers and wrote songs about werewolves and Martians with the same energy other punks used to rage against the system. It’s all about monsters, gore, and campy violence, with a snarling punk attitude. Think doo-wop melodies soaked in fake blood, with power chords and ghoulish imagery that rides the line between fun and creepy.
Later bands like Samhain, AFI (early era), and Calabrese represent this shoutable, grimy, and theatrical genre.
Hyperpop
| Origin: | Late 2010s electronic music |
| Peak popularity | 2017–present |
| Defining artists: | 100 gecs, Charli XCX, Dorian Electra, and Rina Sawayama |
| Exemplary album: | Charli XCX, Brat (2024) |
Hyperpop might seem like an odd fit in a rock genre list, but hear me out: it’s a wild exaggeration of everything rock music has embraced in different forms over the decades. Think of it as bubblegum pop fed through a distortion pedal. Guitars sometimes show up, but they’re mangled. Everything is turned to 11, then run through auto-tune, pitch shifts, and sonic mayhem.
This hyperactive, glossy, distorted, glitchy, emotional, and often absurd pop music with shades of electronic, trap, and experimental sounds is almost post-genre. It emerged in the late 2010s from internet subcultures, with artists like 100 gecs, Charli XCX, Dorian Electra, and Rina Sawayama (who leans more directly into nu-metal and glam) pushing boundaries.
