Tag: types of rock music
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Albums You Must Hear Before You Die…Or Not (1999–2000)
It’s been a 10-year slog through the list of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (edited by Robert Dimery), and I’m just now getting around to 1999–2000. The total album count is 1,083 albums, for those of you keeping track at home. The list of must-hear albums gets exceedingly thin around the turn…
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Top 50+ Alternative Rock Albums (According to Me)
Like many comparable types of rock music, alternative rock music went through phases or waves of emergence, peak saturation, and ultimate decline. Our task is to parse and evaluate the best albums from the period, which isn’t easy. It begs a bigger question: What is alternative rock? Modern rock bands are still making what we…
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What Is Alternative Rock? The Ultimate Explainer
Alternative rock functions less as a singular aesthetic and more as a sprawling ideological umbrella that sheltered the fringes of guitar music for nearly two decades. It emerged as a direct rebuttal to the polished, synthesized sheen of 1980s pop and the theatrical excess and machismo of arena rock. While the genre eventually conquered the…
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Rock Genres Beginning With U–Z
Ten months, 370+ rock genres, and roughly 100,000 words later, the alphabetical odyssey has reached a destination. Rock Genres Explained arrives at a comfortable place to rest, though it’s not the end. New genres will continue to emerge from the cosmic background radiation. The letters U through Z prioritize the visual and the mythological. As…
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Rock Genres Beginning With T
As we move through the list of rock genres, we arrive at a letter that represents some of the most intense and distinct movements in musical history. The letter T represents a fascinating crossroads for the Rock Genres Explained series. Here, we see the absolute precision of technical death metal sitting alongside the carefree, salt-rimmed…
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Rock Genres Beginning With S (Sp–Sy)
As far as rock genres go, the letter S often signifies a profound shift in focus, home to subgenres defined equally by attitude and sound. This is where rock genres get surgical. We move past general categories and focus on specialized sonic aesthetics—from the abrasive, metallic aggression of specific metal variants to the melancholic, layered…
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Rock Genres Beginning With S (Sa–So)
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…
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Rock Genres Beginning With R
The rock genre universe is constantly expanding from global rhythms and synchronized noise to political manifestos and cosplay pride parades. For the next installment of our Rock Genres Explained series, we’re diving deep into the letter ‘R’, which marks an evolution into the massive, adaptive structure we simply call types of Rock Music, and the…
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Rock Genres Beginning With Q
As the rock genres explainer rolls through the alphabetical list of rock genres, we come across one of the loneliest letters, Q, with only one genre: queercore. Not content with mediocrity, we went all out on an in-depth look into the history and future of the genre. What Is Queercore? Origin: Mid-1980s hardcore punk and…
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Rock Genres Beginning With P (Pr–Pu)
The second half of our rock genre explainer for the letter P features three of the most important genres of our lifetimes: progressive, psychedelic, and punk rock. And, as usual, the list of rock genres includes a few surprises. Let’s dig in! Progressive metal Origin: Mid-1980s U.S. & European heavy metal and progressive rock Peak…
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Rock Genres Beginning With P (Pa–Po)
Buckle up for a wild ride as we tackle some of the most important rock genres that start with P in this first half of the letter’s installment. Our rock genre explainer doesn’t quit until rock bands stop coming up with new subgenres. Pagan metal Origin: Early 1990s European extreme metal (especially Finland, Germany, Russia)…
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Rock Genres Beginning With O
Rock has never been shy about reinventing itself, and the letter “O” captures some of the strangest and most spirited offshoots on the list of rock genres. It’s a category of “outliers.” From the occult theatrics of late-’60s bands like Coven and Black Widow to the gutter-punk sneer of the Cockney Rejects and Britain’s Oi!…
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Rock Genres Beginning With N
The letter “N” doesn’t exactly scream “rock n’ roll,” but it’s one of the most eclectic letters in the genre alphabet, thanks to its association with “neo” and “new”. From the breakneck skate-punk of nardcore to the grim extremism of National Socialist black metal, the virtuosic speed of neoclassical metal, and the dreamy textures of neo-psychedelia, these N-genres cover nearly every corner…
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Rock Genres Beginning with A
One of our most popular pages on BSM (in terms of organic search traffic) is a barebones list of rock genres from A to Z (copy-pasted from Wikipedia and doctored with numerous additions). It didn’t even have a featured image until recently. The list has sat unmolested for over a decade, collecting clicks. For whatever…