Last Updated on January 10, 2026 by Christian Adams
We’re getting near the end of the Rock Genres Explained series and I’m vaguely relieved to see a glimmer of hope at the terminus. I have never so deeply underestimated a project from conception to completion. What I thought would take a month has taken nearly a year. Would I do it again? Definitely. Since we started our crawl down the list of genres, more than two dozen new types of rock music have been added to the list!
Here we are at the letter S, which is loaded with some heavy hitters. Let’s dive in!
Sadcore
| Origins: | Early 1990s indie rock and folk |
| Peak popularity: | 1992–2000 |
| Defining artists: | Red House Painters, Low, Cat Power, Arab Strap |
| Exemplary album(s): | Low, I Could Live in Hope (1994), and Red House Painters, Down Color Red (1993) |
You don’t have to like it, but sadcore is an apt descriptor for an intensely personal, melancholic blend of blues, folk, and country music with the self-important aesthetics of art rock, and just a whisper of post-punk. “Demure indie folk” doesn’t roll off the tongue like “’90s hipster coffee shop music”.
Sadcore vs. Slowcore: Two Poets at a Party
Sadcore is often considered synonymous with slowcore, and the genres have shared origins both stylistically and contemporaneously; however, slowcore came first. There’s another distinction: Sadcore is really slow and willfully, nihilistically depressive—Joy Division at half-speed, basically. It starts down and it stays down. Slowcore is really slow but not necessarily dwelling on depression or sadness, venturing into wildly adventurous emotions such as ennui, resentment, betrayal, and existentialism. Many bands could and would frequently crossover between genres, unintentionally, I suppose.
There are two poets at a party. You should already anticipate the pretense and irony. Sadcore is Sylvia Plath—off-kilter, tortured, beautiful and charming but ultimately consumed by herself. Slowcore is Ted Hughes—brooding, stoic, unfaithful, handsome, impressive, and emotionally stunted. Neither poet brings a shitload of life to the party, you know what I mean? Just being in the room with them brings the temperature down a few degrees. Now, will sadcore kill itself because slowcore is unfaithful and abusive? We don’t know because it won’t happen at the party.
A Pattern of Association
Looking at different types of rock music, you’ll quickly notice a pattern among the subgenres. Most bands associated with a given term (e.g., sadcore) don’t want to be associated with the term. Haha. But…they have every right to reject labels they didn’t create. Most of these labels are contrived by music critics grasping for a way to describe any random band.
Off the top of my head, I can name a handful of genres that are routinely disavowed by the artists who defined them: Britpop, butt rock, college rock, hair metal, jangle pop, lad rock, and numerous mutations of metal. I don’t know the fellas in Coldplay as people, personally, but I’ll bet cash money that they don’t appreciate “adult alternative” or “neo-easy listening“.
No artist associated with or categorized as sadcore would ever say they make sadcore music. Some might be offended (see: slowcore) You have my equivocated blessing to chuckle (or scoff) if someone says, “Yeah, I’m in a sadcore band.” Artists of the genre actually make really slow, quiet, often claustrophobic and depressing indie rock—using the word “rock” sparingly here because there’s not a lot of “rock” involved.
The Sound of Beige Wallpaper
Nevertheless, sadcore gained a loyal fanbase in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a reaction to the angry sloppiness of grunge and the brass-ring populism of alternative rock. Fair enough and right on.
The sadcore sound is defined by a predictably somber mood of emotional trauma and/or stasis, emphasizing minimalist arrangements, agonizingly slow tempos, and lyrics focused on themes of loss, despair, isolation, and quiet suffering. “Wallowing in one’s excrement,” is the best way I’ve heard it described.
The instrumentation is typically pared back to spacey guitars, gentle piano lines, and simple drum patterns. Its distinguishing features are its muted and sexless vocals and obsessive lyrical focus on the utterly heartbreaking aspects of the human condition. I don’t want to say it sounds sad, but it doesn’t sound happy or joyful, how about that? It’s the musical equivalent of beige wallpaper.
Breathe or Suffocate: Your Choice
At its foundation, all sadcore music is derivative of the Velvet Underground’s third album, The Velvet Underground (1969), particularly the ballads “Candy Says”, “Jesus”, “Pale Blue Eyes”. Additionally, the genre is traced to the loss-prevention solipsism of Leonard Cohen and the clinically damaged longing of Nick Drake. Music designed for introspection and solitude, giving room for the sadness to breathe—or suffocate.
The tranquil beauty of The Velvet Underground (1969) was a reaction to the frenetic experimentalism of their previous album, White Light/White Heat (1968). Sort of a palate cleansing reversal of their avant-garde rock polarity. Sadcore doesn’t emerge from such a place of rebirth or change. It comes from the needle-pinning black end of the spectrum, deep in the heart of the problem.
Sadcore As We Know It
Sadcore (as we know it) came fully formed from the icy woodlands of Duluth, Minnesota, with a band called Low, who became the genre’s chief architects with their debut, I Could Live in Hope (1994). Other bands predate the sound of using extreme deceleration, pithy one-word song titles, and hushed male-female vocal harmonies to create a mood of ceremonial bleakness, but Low hit a nerve with the aforementioned hipster coffee shop crowd. Meanwhile, Red House Painters, used long-form compositions as literary short stories, detailing intimate, often painful personal narratives over frail, drawn-out melodies. Fuckin’ wake me when it’s over.
Stylistically, this type of music might be considered the opposite of Swedish death metal, but they’re coming from the same place of dis-ease, expressed in different ways. They’re equally unhappy. In the sadcore context, slower and quieter is louder and faster.
Samba Rock
| Origins: | 1960s Brazilian samba and bossa nova |
| Peak popularity: | 1967–1977 |
| Defining artists: | Jorge Ben Jor, Bebeto, Trio Mocotó, Erasmo Carlos |
| Exemplary album(s): | Jorge Ben Jor, Samba Esquema Novo (1963) |
Samba rock (aka sambalanço) is a uniquely Brazilian subgenre of dance music that emerged in the late 1960s. Characterized by a specific style of rhythmic guitar playing (often called “levada”) and a heavy emphasis on the “groove,” it represents a cultural crossroads where the traditional syncopation of samba meets the electric energy of rock n’ roll, soul, and funk. Think: brass sections and multiple percussionists, vaguely, and by vaguely I mean by a whisker, associated with Latin rock.
Screamo
| Origins: | Mid-1990s hardcore punk and emo |
| Peak popularity: | 1997–2005 |
| Defining artists: | Orchid, Pg. 99, Circle Takes the Square, Envy |
| Exemplary album(s): | Orchid, Chaos Is Me (1999) |
I’m learning about some of these genres in real time. Perfect example: screamo.
I had a fairly good idea what it might sound like from the name. Screaming plus emo. Fair enough. Who we got? Orchid—the quintessential screamo act—a nice group of fellas from Massachusetts. Let’s dial up Chaos Is Me, and—yikes—an aural equivalent of a panic attack with guitar, bass, drums, and…genuine emotional trauma. All the redline dynamics of death metal with abrupt tempo changes and angular, dissonant guitar work, creating a hardcore punk sound on the verge of perpetual collapse.
To be honest, screamo started to grow on me. By the third song of Chaos Is Me (“New Jersey vs. Valhalla”), they had me hooked. By the seventh track (“The Action Index”), I was thinking, “Aww, man, this kid needs a hug and a chocolate milk shake.” I have a feeling these boys could just have easily started a sadcore band because it’s coming from the same place. In fact, those sadcore kids got nothing on screamo.
Screamo in One Paragraph
Screamo emerged in the mid-1990s, predominantly on the U.S. East Coast, as a reaction against the growing melodic and perceived commercial softening of early emo, especially Midwest emo. Songs are typically short, often clocking in under two minutes, sounding more like an emotional purge than anything else. Bands like Virginia’s Pg. 99 and Orchid released music on independent labels and drew from the aggressive nature of earlier bands like Heroin and Reversal of Man. The Japanese band Envy merged the genre’s typical fury with atmospheric post-rock elements.
True screamo remains a deeply underground genre, valued for its purity and emotional honesty, and I hope every album includes a lyric sheet.
Shaman punk
| Origins | Late 1970s Hungarian punk and folk rock |
| Peak popularity | 1980–1995 |
| Defining artists | Galloping Coroners (Vágtázó Halottkémek aka VHK) |
| Must-hear album(s) | Galloping Coroners, Hammering On The Gates Of Nothingness (1992) |
It happens occasionally in the constant reproductive cycle of rock music that a band is so far beyond categorization that they get their own genre. [Think: neo-prog and Marillion.]
Meet shaman punk and the Hungarian band Galloping Coroners (Vágtázó Halottkémek aka VHK). The band emerged the late 1970s with a blend of punk, hardcore punk, Hungarian folk music, and experimental rock so unique that music critics had to invent a term. Suggestions included “psychedelic hardcore”, “ethno punk”, and “ethnic folk punk”, until we arrived at shaman punk. Whatever you want to call it, you’ve probably never heard anything like it.
What Is Shaman Punk?
The concept of “shaman punk” music is based on a modern musical interpretation of prehistoric tribal ceremonies in the service of cosmic communication with the powers of nature and creation. Led by frontman Atilla Grandpierre, Galloping Coroners combined repetitive, thundering rhythms with howling, indecipherable vocals and screaming rock guitars to form a uniquely pulsating and ecstatic sound. The repetition is reminiscent of krautrock, while the energy leans into industrial rock with an essence of Balkan folk harmony.
Galloping Coroners were probably the most important Eastern European alternative band of the 1980s, but Hungarian authorities blocked them from worldwide tours. Eventually, their reputation drifted across Eastern Europe and caught the attention of major Western musicians like Henry Rollins, who took Galloping Coroners on the road.
In 1992, Jello Biafra’s record label Alternative Tentacles released Hammering On The Gates Of Nothingness, the band’s best and most accessible record of their 40-year history.
Shoegaze
| Origins | Late 1980s United Kingdom alternative guitar rock |
| Peak popularity | 1990–1992, 2010–present |
| Defining artists | My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Slowdive, Lush |
| Must-hear album(s) | My Bloody Valentine, Loveless (1991) |
Shoegaze earned its famously dismissive name from the habit of guitarists staring down at their feet and effects pedals during live performances, rather than engaging with the audience (“shoegazing”). This visual detachment was perfectly mirrored by the music itself, which sought to immerse the listener in a dense, swirling atmosphere of noise and color rather than offer traditional showmanship.
Shoegaze emerged from the post-punk scene of the late 1980s, primarily in the U.K. Bands like The Jesus and Mary Chain had already introduced the New Wall of Sound with distorted layers of noise, but it was My Bloody Valentine, led by Kevin Shields, who perfected the formula. The sound is characterized by massive volume, layers of effects (reverb, delay, chorus, and distortion), and a unique approach to tremolo-bar usage that created the famous “glide guitar” technique. Melodies, often provided by hushed or layered vocals, are typically buried deep within the sonic wash, transforming them into texture rather than a focal point.
While the genre’s initial peak was brief—quickly overshadowed by the rise of American grunge and later Britpop—its influence proved immense. Albums like Ride’s Nowhere (1990) and Loveless set a technical benchmark for production that few have ever matched, but thousands of alternative guitar bands have tried. The sound underwent a major revival in the 2010s, with new artists embracing the atmospheric, textural sound. They’re still staring at their shoes, too.
Shock rock
| Origins: | Late 1960s garage rock and vaudeville |
| Peak popularity: | 1971–1979; 1990–present |
| Defining artists: | Alice Cooper, Kiss, GWAR, Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie, GG Allin |
| Exemplary album(s) | Alice Cooper, Love It to Death (1971); GWAR, Scumdogs of the Universe (1990) |
People are addicted to cultural discomfort, i.e., the adrenaline rush of fear. We enjoy getting spooked or grossed out. We love to see some crazy shit, and we’ve invented monsters, demons, and all sorts of scary problems to keep us entertained.
In a nutshell, shock rock is musical theater with guitars. It’s an extension of old school performative traditions dating to the vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley eras. The genre formed in the late 1960s as one of many responses to the saccharine nature of pop music, using horror film and occult aesthetics to enact dark fantasies and social critiques on stage. Whatever puts the butts in the seats, right?
Spectacle Sells Tickets
The progenitor of the movement is often cited as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins in the 1950s, but his brand of voodoo rock faded quickly. Alice Cooper perfected the rock component in the early 1970s, introducing guillotines, fake blood, snakes, and public executions to the mainstream stage. Cooper’s blend of garage rock grit, glam rock melody, and sideshow theatricality showed that stagecraft could be as important as the music. Kiss followed quickly, using pyrotechnics, elaborate costumes, and stage personas to create a spectacle of epic proportions.
I hate to burst any bubbles here, but the Kiss stage show was visually shocking in 1976, but as a band, they didn’t really make shock rock music. Most of their songs are hard rock sing-alongs with benign choruses about partying and sex. Very little “shocking” content on the average Kiss album compared to Alice Cooper, who talked about sexual assault, religion, and mental illness.
Regardless, shock rock is less a musical genre and more a theatrical gambit. The sound varies widely, encompassing blues rock, hard rock, and heavy metal, but the common thread is the deliberate use of provocative, often grotesque, imagery and performance art. The object of performative theater is to challenge audience sensibilities and blur the lines between rock concert and horror show. Several derivative subgenres like horror punk and psychobilly attempt a similar merger with far less emphasis on theatrical elements.
The Persistence of Shock Rock in the Modern Age
The 1980s saw the emergence of GWAR, a sci-fi/horror comedy troupe who built a legendary reputation on elaborate costumes and spraying their audience with copious amounts of simulated bodily fluids. In the 1990s, Marilyn Manson synthesized the genre, using industrial metal and unsettling visuals to offer pointed critiques of religion, media, and American culture.
Shock rock persists because of its ability to exploit and capitalize on cultural discomfort, proving that controversy still sells tickets. Even on the absolute fringes of anything remotely mainstream, there’s a place for the grotesque. And nobody took it further than GG Allin.
Ska punk
| Origins: | Late 1970s ska and punk rock |
| Peak popularity: | 1979–1983; 1989–1999 |
| Defining artists: | The Specials, Selecter, The English Beat, Operation Ivy, Less Than Jake, Rancid, Reel Big Fish, Sublime |
| Exemplary album(s): | Operation Ivy, Energy (1991); Sublime, Sublime (1996) |
To arrive at ska punk, we must pass through a gauntlet of sorts. Jamaican ska combines elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and R&B, characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the offbeat. The genre was developed in the 1960s by artists such as Stranger Cole, Prince Buster, Clement “Coxsone” Dodd, and Duke Reid, giving rise to reggae and rocksteady.
Ska eventually gained international exposure, inspiring the two-tone ska revival of the late 1970s in the U.K., which fused Jamaican ska rhythms and melodies with the faster tempos and harder edge of punk rock. But we typically don’t consider the Specials to be a ska punk band. They’re a British ska band, basically.
True Ska Punk
The true ska punk hybrid emerged in the late 1980s, primarily through the Southern California and Berkeley, CA, scenes, marrying third-wave ska’s energy with the relentless speed of West Coast hardcore. Immediately recognizable by its rhythmic structure: driving punk drumming combined with the signature, choppy upstroke guitar riff (the foundational “skank” sound of ska). The contrast has a characteristically buoyant energy; inherently danceable while maintaining a defiant punk attitude. Though often associated with party anthems, ska punk maintains a strong connection to punk’s anti-establishment and DIY roots.
You’re not going anywhere in ska without a horn section, and ska punk is heavily reliant on bright, melodic lines from trumpets, trombones, and saxophones that often carry the chorus or provide an instrumental breakdown.
Operation Ivy defined the sound before their split led to the formation of Rancid, who continued the ska punk thread alongside their street punk roots. The genre reached its mainstream peak in the mid-1990s with groups like Less Than Jake, Reel Big Fish, and the hugely influential, multifaceted sound of Sublime, who blended ska, punk, reggae, and hip-hop.
Skate punk
| Origins: | Early 1980s California hardcore punk |
| Peak popularity: | 1984–2000 |
| Defining artists: | Bad Religion, NOFX, Pennywise, Lagwagon, Descendents |
| Exemplary album(s): | Bad Religion, Suffer (1988) |
Aside from surf music, to the best of my knowledge, skate rock and skate punk are the only genres that involve a sport. To be fair, what we’re calling skate punk here is synonymous with melodic hardcore, and I stand by everything I said about Bad Religion in that particular explainer.
There’s a subtle difference between punk rock that skateboarders listen to versus punk rock made by and for skaters. For example, skaters have been listening to Dead Kennedys and Black Flag since the beginning, but that music wasn’t tailor-made for the skateboard demographic. Inevitably, skaters started making their own music—skate rock—that morphed into a fast-paced, melodic subgenre of hardcore punk called skate punk, of course.
The soundtrack to the California skate scene in the 1980s and 90s features high-speed “galloping” drumbeats, technically proficient guitar solos (gasp!), and often high-pitched, melodic vocal harmonies. Lyrically, it shifted away from the pure, exclusively political nihilism of early punk toward themes of personal freedom, humor, suburban boredom, and, of course, skateboarding. Some skate punk sounds downright anthemic.
Skate rock
| Origins | Early 1980s hardcore punk and skateboarding |
| Peak popularity | 1982–1986 |
| Defining artists | JFA, The Faction, Suicidal Tendencies, McRad, Drunk Injuns |
| Must-hear album(s) | JFA (Jodie Foster’s Army), Blatant Localism (1981) |
While often confused with skate punk, skate rock historically refers to the crossover period in the early-to-mid 1980s when the skateboarding subculture and the thrash/hardcore scenes were indistinguishable. This music is often meaner, crunchier, and more influenced by crossover thrash than the “melodic” skate punk that followed. It was popularized by Thrasher Magazine and their “Skate Rock” compilation tapes, which featured bands composed of actual pro skaters. Thrasher’s Skaterock Vol. 1 (1983) is the primary source of the term. The Faction’s No One Can Be First (1984) features pro skater Steve Caballero and helped cement the “Skate Rock” identity.
Slacker rock
| Origins: | Late 1980s lo-fi and indie rock |
| Peak popularity: | 1991–1996 |
| Defining artists: | Pavement, Sebadoh, Guided by Voices, Dinosaur Jr., Beck |
| Must-hear album(s): | Pavement, Slanted and Enchanted (1993); Sebadoh, Bakesale (1994) |
Call it anti-virtuosity rock, where technical skill and musical education is often hidden under a veil of conscious amateurism. The ultimate “we’re sounding shitty on purpose!” trope borrowed from Captain Beefheart. It seems counterintuitive, but there’s room for art that takes indifference this seriously.
To be clear, nobody wants to be associated with the term “slacker rock”, which is based on yet another trivial archetype in popular culture: the uber-creative, anti-heroic loser. Emerging symbiotically with grunge, slacker rock offered a quieter, more deliberately unpolished aesthetic, embracing the lo-fi production values and lackadaisical attitude associated with the Generation X “slacker” popularized by the film Clerks and Richard Linklater’s 1991 film Slacker.
Slacker rock is the antithesis of progressive metal, a mushroom under the forest canopy of clever carelessness. The slacker aesthetic is defined by intentional sloppiness: low-budget production, often recorded on cheap four-track recorders, resulting in muddy drums, distorted bass, and half-mumbled vocals. Songs are mid-tempo, casual, and feature complex, abstract, and often archly clever lyrics delivered with a deliberate lack of conviction. Beck’s “Loser” from Mellow Gold (1994) is the movement’s (mainstream) signature song.
Pavement is the genre’s most recognizable figurehead, balancing noise rock influence with subtle melodic genius on albums like Slanted and Enchanted. At the same time, Robert Pollard’s prolific Guided by Voices churned out dozens of brilliant, two-minute fragments of lo-fi rock on their own schedule. Slacker rock was the intelligent, slightly pretentious cousin to grunge, rejecting polished commercialism and preferring to sound like a basement rehearsal tape that accidentally stumbled upon brilliance.
Slowcore
| Origins: | Early 1990s indie rock/slowcore |
| Peak popularity: | Mid-1990s |
| Defining artists: | American Music Club, Codeine, Low, Bedhead, Galaxie 500, Red House Painters |
| Exemplary album(s): | Codeine, Frigid Stars LP (1990) |
Once upon a time in 1988, an obscure Canadian alternative country band called Cowboy Junkies recorded an album of somber songs in a church using one ambisonic microphone. The resulting album, The Trinity Sessions, sold millions of copies and inspired a phalanx of derivative artists going for the same chillaxed vibe. Can you guess the big hit? A cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane”.
Patience and Reverence
Whatever’s been said musically about sadcore—the glacial tempos, minimal instrumentation, the sparse and reverent mood—applies to slowcore. Additionally, we can say that slowcore draws its influences from dream pop, folk, and alternative rock. Related to the development of post-rock, it’s the opposite of bombast, the enemy of arena rock. Patience and reverence as primary elements of its composition. E-T-C.
It’s hard not to feel bad for artists who feel insulted by the “slowcore” label. Their music’s deliberate pace is designed to make the listener tune in closely, not lull them to sleep.
Pioneered by bands like New York’s Codeine at the turn of the 1990s, the music relies on sustained notes, simple drum patterns, and a vast, reverb-heavy atmosphere. The songs often sound suspended in time, emphasizing the spaces between notes as much as the notes themselves. Lyrics tend to be subdued and emotionally fragile, delivered in hushed tones, further contributing to the genre’s introspective, fragile mood.
Slowcore’s focus is primarily architectural—it’s about the structure and the pace, forcing the listener to slow down and absorb the atmosphere. Along with Codeine, the Dallas band Bedhead became highly influential for their precise, interwoven guitar lines played at a near-immobile tempo, while Low remains the most commercially enduring torchbearer of the slow, quiet revolution.
Sludge metal
| Origins: | Late 1980s alternative metal |
| Peak popularity: | 1992–2000 |
| Defining artists: | Eyehategod, Melvins, Crowbar |
| Exemplary album(s): | Eyehategod, Take as Needed for Pain (1993); Melvins, Houdini (1993) |
Born primarily out of the grim underbelly of New Orleans in the late 1980s, this punishing genre is a corrosive fusion of the slow, oppressive heaviness of doom metal and the caustic hostility of hardcore punk. The result is often excruciatingly dense, downtuned, and violently abrasive music. Above all, it’s exceedingly derivitive of Black Sabbath except Ozzy was singing a song. That’s not what’s going on here.
What is Sludge Metal?
The sound is immediately defined by its tone: guitars are thick with maximum fuzz and distortion, creating a sludgy, almost physically palpable wall of noise. Drums mix doom’s plodding, monolithic pace with sudden bursts of hardcore double-time. Crucially, the vocals are usually screamed, shrieked, or barked in a way that conveys a profound sense of self-loathing, chemical dependence, and despair, reflecting the difficult lives of the bands themselves.
[The] Melvins, though hailing from the Pacific Northwest, are often cited as foundational, due to their slow, heavy, and experimental sound, heavily influencing the NOLA scene. However, bands like Eyehategod and Crowbar truly cemented the genre’s identity—a sound that has remained defiantly underground and dedicated to its blues-derived, suffocating heaviness.
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Soft grunge
| Origins: | Early 2010s indie rock fashion and alternative rock |
| Peak popularity: | 2012–2014 |
| Defining artists: | Title Fight, Adventures, Balance and Composure, Basement, Citizen, Pity Sex, Superheaven, Turnover |
| Exemplary album(s): | Title Fight, Floral Green (2012) |
I must admit that I go into some of these subgenres like, “What the fuck are you talking about, soft grunge? It’s gotta be some kind of internet bullshit.”
Music and fashion have been working together since the beginning of recorded history, and I’m not going to waste anybody’s time with a discourse on masks, costumes, and performative art. Like many other genres, alternative rock, i.e., indie rock and grunge had their own signature line of “looks” from designers like Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder. Ironic t-shirt over long-sleeved underwear, ratty blue jeans, and Chuck Taylor Converse lo-tops. We used to call it “The Indie Rock Uniform.” While the indie aesthetic lasted longer than the genre, look no further than soft grunge for a contemporary example of tragedy plus time equals comedy.
Soft grunge was a fashion trend that originated on Tumblr in the early 2010s and an unrelated musical subgenre. Let’s cover the fashion side first.
Soft Grunge as a Fashion Trend
Derived from the previous indie sleaze fashion trend, soft grunge borrowed from the 1990s, particularly grunge fashion. The trend mixed traditional grunge with “soft” aesthetics: pastel colors, floral patterns, and haute couture sensibilities. Its digital-first merger of subculture, fashion and music made it one of the earliest examples of an “internet aesthetic.” A revival of 1990s Pacific Northwest cardigan sweaters for a social media generation.
The term originated on microblogging platforms like Tumblr, where users began blending industrial-tinged synthpop over lyrics about vulnerability and urban isolation. Later, the sound was characterized by high-gain guitar riffs paired with ethereal vocals, lo-fi production, and a preoccupation with melancholy and teenage longing (now called “pop noir”). Artists like Sky Ferreira, Lana Del Rey, and The Neighbourhood bridged the gap between alternative rock and mainstream pop. The trend only lasted about two years because everybody nowadays has the attention span of a squirrel on acid.
Soft Grunge as a Subgenre
Also known as grunge revival, soft grunge emerged in the early 2010s, blending elements of alternative rock, emo, grunge, indie rock, pop punk, post-hardcore, and shoegaze. Almost every band associated with the genre is on Run for Cover Records based in Boston, MA.
Soft rock
| Origins: | Late 1960s folk, pop, and orchestral pop |
| Peak popularity: | 1969–present |
| Defining artists: | Carole King, James Taylor, Bread, Fleetwood Mac, Billy Joel, The Carpenters |
| Exemplary album(s): | Carole King, Tapestry (1971); James Taylor, Sweet Baby James (1970) |
Hard rock brought the soundtrack for the keg party of the 1970s, soft rock offered the ambient muzak for the Catalina Wine Mixer. Emerging from the James Taylor singer-songwriter movement and the Cat Stevens corners of folk rock in the late 1960s, soft rock dominated the airwaves—specifically the new FM radio format—through the 1970s and early 1980s. This genre prioritized melody, harmony, and immaculate production above all else. The worst thing about James Taylor is he’s got the potential to rock somewhere deep in his psyche, but he never let it show. I’m sure I could use AI to generate a version of James Taylor doing “Good Times, Bad Times” or “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking?” but who has time for that?
Musically, soft rock is characterized by gentle dynamics, often featuring acoustic instrumentation, polished electric piano, orchestral strings, and lush, multi-tracked vocal harmonies. Distortion is minimal, and the focus is squarely on the songwriting, emphasizing themes of romance, relationships, and introspective life observations. It was sophisticated, accessible music engineered to be played in both elevators and arenas.
Adult Contemporary vs. Soft Rock: The Battle for Elevators and Waiting Rooms
I can’t believe I’m typing this sentence, but we need to get something straight about a vocal duo called The Carpenters. You may know them from such adult contemporary and easy listening hits “Close to You”, “We’ve Only Just Begun”, and “Superstar”. They do not, I repeat, do not make soft rock music. Period.
Adult contemporary and soft rock are closely related (in terms of radio programming) but not exactly interchangeable. The distinction lies in the “rock” part of the equation. Soft rock emerged in the early ’70s as a melodic, introspective breath of fresh air from the hard rock and psychedelic wildings of Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. The housewives of America preferred the singer-songwriters who thought in album arcs with bird sounds rather than commute-friendly playlists. Think early Eagles, Carole King, Nilsson, Fleetwood Mac: polished, yes, but still rooted in rock’s territory.
Both prioritize melody and high-fidelity production, but adult contemporary, by contrast, is less a genre than a mindset. It’s softness as a format, sanding down risk in favor of consistency and comfort. The intent is different. Soft rock often accidentally became soothing; adult contemporary aims to be unobtrusive, stripping away the “rock” edges to favor “the middle of the road.” Fuckin’ music for waiting rooms. Where soft rock might feature a guitar solo, AC leans into orchestral pop and a polished, “office-friendly” sheen.
- The Overlap: They meet in the yacht rock harbor—artists like Christopher Cross or Michael McDonald sit perfectly in the center. Billy Joel’s floofy “Just the Way You Are” being the ultimate adult contemporary-soft rock crossover track.
- The Divergence: Soft rock can still be “cool” in a vintage, denim-jacket way; AC is intentionally designed for mass-market pleasantness, often snuffing out the spark that makes soft rock vaguely tolerable.
Is It Soft Rock Or Not?
| Adult Contemporary vs. Soft Rock Face-off Round 1 | ||
| Artist | Adult contemporary | Soft rock |
| Barbra Streisand | ✅ | ❌ |
| Lionel Ritchie | ✅ | ✅ |
| Joni Mitchell | ❌ | ✅ |
| The Carpenters | ✅ | ❌ |
| James Taylor | ✅ | ✅ |
| Cat Stevens | ❌ | ✅ |
| ABBA | ❌ | ✅ |
| Chicago | ✅ | ✅ |
| Anne Murray | ✅ | ❌ |
| Olivia Newton-John | ✅ | ❌ |
| Celine Dion | ✅ | ❌ |
| Mariah Carey | ✅ | ❌ |
| Whitney Houston | ✅ | ❌ |
| Carole King | ✅ | ✅ |
| Fleetwood Mac | ❌ | ✅ |
| Bread | ✅ | ✅ |
| Eagles | ❌ | ✅ |
| Billy Joel | ✅ | ✅ |
| Elton John | ✅ | ✅ |
| Dionne Warwick | ✅ | ❌ |
Southern metal
| Origins: | Early 1990s heavy metal from the American South |
| Peak popularity: | 1993–2005 |
| Defining artists: | Corrosion of Conformity, Down, Crowbar, Pantera-adjacent |
| Exemplary album(s): | Corrosion of Conformity, Deliverance (1994) |
If it was only as simple as “Southern metal is metal made by Southern bands.”
Southern metal is a tightly defined strain of heavy metal rooted in the American South that fuses metal’s heft and aggression with the attitude, blues phrasing, and regional identity of Southern rock. The defining trait is an audible lineage: riffs that swing, guitar tones borrowed from boogie and blues, and an attitude closer to Lynyrd Skynyrd than Iron Maiden.
The term began appearing in the early 1990s among critics and fans trying to describe bands that sounded nothing like thrash, death metal, or glam metal, yet were clearly heavier than hard rock. It gained traction as a way to separate this sound from sludge metal, which leaned slower and more abrasive, and from groove metal that stripped away regional flavor.
The core artists are Corrosion of Conformity, Down, and Crowbar, with Pantera often cited as an influence rather than a pure example. These bands drew equally from Black Sabbath and Lynyrd Skynyrd, favoring mid-tempo grooves, blues-based scales, and songs built around feel rather than speed.
Southern metal reached peak visibility in the mid-to-late 1990s, when metal audiences were fragmenting and regional identity became a strength instead of a limitation.
Southern rock
| Origins: | Late 1960s blues, country, and hard rock |
| Peak popularity: | 1971–1979 |
| Defining artists: | The Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top (early), Molly Hatchet |
| Must-hear album(s): | The Allman Brothers Band, At Fillmore East (1971); Lynyrd Skynyrd, Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd (1973) |
Southern rock emerged from the swamplands of Florida and Georgia as a blues-drenched rock n’ roll experience with more rednecks and Confederate flags than a tailgate party at an Alabama football game. It’s one of the few genres where you can get away with saying, “Y’all come back, now, yuh hear?”
Defining Features of Southern Rock
The term emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s as critics searched for language to distinguish these bands from both California rock and British blues revivalists. It coalesced the improvisational spirit of the electric blues with the posture of rock n’ roll and the lyrical themes of country music. It’s one of several genres deeply tied to a specific geographic and cultural identity.
Southern rock’s defining musical features are its downhome “swing feel” (aka boogie shuffle) and instrumental virtuosity, specifically the use of dual or triple lead guitars playing complex, harmonized lines and lengthy, jam-oriented solos rooted in the blues scale. The sound is earthy rather than ornate, drawing as much from Delta blues and gospel as from British rock.
Regional Identity
While earlier artists like the Allman Brothers Band resisted the label, it stuck because it captured a shared musical vocabulary and regional identity. These bands played loud and improvisational rock, but with distinctly Southern accents in phrasing, rhythm, and storytelling. Each interpreted the style differently, from jazz-inflected jams to radio-ready anthems, but all shared a blues-based foundation and a sense of Southern continuity.
Southern rock reached peak popularity in the mid-1970s, when it dominated FM radio and touring circuits. A definitive album from the era is The Allman Brothers Band’s At Fillmore East (1971), which set the standard for the genre’s musicianship, feel, and ambition. Lynyrd Skynyrd brought a harder, more anthem-oriented edge, focusing on working-class narratives and Southern pride, creating iconic standards like “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Free Bird.”
The Plane Crash That Killed Southern Rock
Though the original Southern rock scene was decimated by tragedy (the plane crash that killed several members of Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1977), the style’s influence remained foundational to blues rock and hard rock.
