Rock is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles from the mid-1960s, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the genres of blues, rhythm and blues, and from country music. Rock also drew strongly from genres such as electric blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock has centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar, drums, and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a ⁴
₄ time signature using a verse–chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political. Rock was the most popular genre of music in the U.S. and much of the Western world from the 1950s to the 2010s.

Rock musicians in the mid-1960s began to advance the album ahead of the single as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, with the Beatles at the forefront of this development. Their contributions lent the genre a cultural legitimacy in the mainstream and initiated a rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. By the late 1960s " classic rock" period, a number of distinct rock music subgenres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock, folk rock, country rock, southern rock, raga rock, and jazz rock, which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock, influenced by the countercultural psychedelic and hippie scene. New genres that emerged included progressive rock, which extended artistic elements, and glam rock, which highlighted showmanship and visual style. In the second half of the 1970s, punk rock reacted by producing stripped-down, energetic social and political critiques. Punk was an influence in the 1980s on new wave, post-punk and eventually alternative rock.

From the 1990s, alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop, and indie rock. Further fusion subgenres have since emerged, including pop-punk, electronic rock, rap rock, and rap metal. Some movements were conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including the garage rock/ post-punk revival in the 2000s. Since the 2010s, rock has lost its position as the pre-eminent popular music genre in world culture, but remains commercially successful. The increased influence of hip-hop and electronic dance music can be seen in rock music, notably in the techno-pop scene of the early 2010s and the pop-punk-hip-hop revival of the 2020s. ( Full article...)

In 2004, the band achieved commercial success with their debut album, Contraband. Despite positive reviews, some critics initially described Velvet Revolver as a mere combination of Stone Temple Pilots and Guns N' Roses, and criticized them for a "disconnection" between Weiland and the rest of the band. With their single " Slither", they won the 2005 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance. The band released Libertad in 2007, driven by the release of the single " She Builds Quick Machines", and embarked on a tour with Alice in Chains.

In April 2008, Weiland was fired from Velvet Revolver and reunited with Stone Temple Pilots. Velvet Revolver was put on indefinite hiatus and in November of that year, requested to be released by their record label RCA Records to allow themselves "complete freedom to go through whatever process it would take to accomplish" replacing Weiland.

Although Velvet Revolver worked on new material and auditioned new singers following Scott Weiland's departure, the band has not released any new material and only performed publicly once since 2008, when they reunited with Weiland for a one-off reunion show on January 12, 2012, at a benefit concert. This proved to be their last performance together before Weiland's death on December 3, 2015. Slash and McKagan rejoined Guns N' Roses in 2016. ( Full article...)

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Born in Liverpool, McCartney taught himself piano, guitar, and songwriting as a teenager, having been influenced by his father, a jazz player, and rock and roll performers such as Little Richard and Buddy Holly. He began his career when he joined Lennon's skiffle group, the Quarrymen, in 1957, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Sometimes called "the cute Beatle", McCartney later immersed himself in the London avant-garde scene and played a key role in incorporating experimental aesthetics into the Beatles' studio productions. Starting with the 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, he gradually became the band's de facto leader, providing creative impetus for most of their music and film projects. Many of his Beatles songs, including " And I Love Her", " Yesterday", " Eleanor Rigby", and " Blackbird", rank among the most covered songs in history. Although primarily a bassist with the Beatles, he played a number of other instruments, including keyboards, guitars, and drums, on various songs.

After the Beatles disbanded, he debuted as a solo artist with the 1970 album McCartney and went on to form the band Wings with his first wife, Linda, and Denny Laine. Under McCartney's leadership, Wings became one of the most successful bands of the 1970s. He wrote or co-wrote their US or UK number-one hits, such as " My Love", " Band on the Run", " Listen to What the Man Said", " Silly Love Songs", and " Mull of Kintyre". He resumed his solo career in 1980 and has been touring as a solo artist since 1989. Apart from Wings, his UK or US number-one hits include " Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" (with Linda), " Coming Up", " Pipes of Peace", " Ebony and Ivory" (with Stevie Wonder), and " Say Say Say" (with Michael Jackson). Beyond music, he has been involved in projects to promote international charities related to animal rights, seal hunting, land mines, vegetarianism, poverty, and music education.

McCartney has written or co-written a record 32 songs that have topped the Billboard Hot 100 and, , he had sales of 25.5 million RIAA-certified units in the US. His honours include two inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a member of the Beatles in 1988 and as a solo artist in 1999), an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, 18 Grammy Awards, an appointment as a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1965, and was appointed Knight Bachelor in 1997 for services to music. As of 2024, he is one of the wealthiest musicians in the world, with an estimated fortune of £1 billion. ( Full article...)

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Achtung Baby ( /ˈæktʊŋ/) is the seventh studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 18 November 1991 on Island Records. After criticism of their 1988 release Rattle and Hum, U2 shifted their direction to incorporate influences from alternative rock, industrial music, and electronic dance music into their sound. Thematically, Achtung Baby is darker, more introspective, and at times more flippant than their previous work. The album and the subsequent multimedia-intensive Zoo TV Tour were central to the group's 1990s reinvention, by which they abandoned their earnest public image for a more lighthearted and self-deprecating one.

Seeking inspiration from German reunification, U2 began recording Achtung Baby at Berlin's Hansa Studios in October 1990. The sessions were fraught with conflict, as the band argued over their musical direction and the quality of their material. After tension and slow progress nearly prompted the group to disband, they made a breakthrough with the improvised writing of the song " One". Morale and productivity improved during subsequent recording sessions in Dublin, where the album was completed in 1991. To confound the public's expectations of the band and their music, U2 chose the record's facetious title and colourful multi-image sleeve.

Achtung Baby is one of U2's most successful records; it received favourable reviews and debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 Top Albums, while topping the charts in many other countries. Five songs were released as commercial singles, all of which were chart successes, including "One", " Mysterious Ways", and " The Fly". The album has sold 18 million copies worldwide and won a Grammy Award in 1993 for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.

Achtung Baby has since been acclaimed by writers and music critics as one of the greatest albums of all time. The record has been reissued several times, including in October 2011 and November 2021 for its 20th and 30th anniversaries, respectively. U2 commemorated the album during their 2023–2024 concert residency, U2:UV Achtung Baby Live, at Sphere in the Las Vegas Valley. ( Full article...)

" Summer of '69" is a song recorded by the Canadian singer Bryan Adams from his fourth album, Reckless. It is an up-tempo rock song about a dilemma between settling down or trying to become a rock star. The track was written by Adams and his longtime songwriting collaborator Jim Vallance. "Summer of '69" was produced by Adams and Bob Clearmountain. "Summer of '69" was released in June 1985 under A&M Records as the fourth single from Reckless. According to later claims by Adams, the title is a reference to the sex position, not the year, but Vallance disputes this.

The song was released with two B-side tracks: "Kids Wanna Rock" and "The Best Was Yet to Come", which had previously appeared on the albums Reckless and Cuts Like a Knife respectively. "Summer of '69" received favourable reviews from music critics. The music video for the song, which was filmed by Steve Barron, features Adams and his backing band in a variety of settings, including running from the police. The single had a strong effect on music charts internationally; in the UK it was acclaimed as one of Adams’s best, with its highest peaks being number four in the Netherlands and number five in the United States. Amongst songs recorded by Canadian artists, it is the most streamed and most digitally purchased song within Canada amongst songs originally released before the start of the digital download era (approximately 2005). It is also the most played song on Canadian radio amongst songs by Canadian artists originally released before 1990. ( Full article...)

Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro performing at Rock am Ring 2013.

• ... that the heavy metal musician Leah has sometimes been called "the metal Enya"?
• ... that Dutch radio and TV presenter Hanneke Kappen presented the second Dutch radio show dedicated to heavy metal music?
• ... that when rock musician Warren Zevon received a terminal diagnosis of lung cancer, he learned to " enjoy every sandwich"?
• ... that heavy metal led Ossian D'Ambrosio to druidism?
• ... that heavy metal band Judas Priest took their name from Bob Dylan's song " The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest"?
• ... that Desulfovibrio vulgaris can remove toxic heavy metals from the environment?

Industrial metal is the fusion of heavy metal and industrial music, typically employing repeating metal guitar riffs, sampling, synthesizer or sequencer lines, and distorted vocals. Prominent industrial metal acts include Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Rammstein, KMFDM, and Godflesh.

Industrial metal developed in the late 1980s, as industrial and metal began to fuse into a common genre. Industrial metal did well in the early 1990s, particularly in North America, with the success of groups such as Nine Inch Nails, but its popularity began to fade in the latter half of the 1990s. ( Full article...)

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• WikiProject Rock music (Main rock project)
• WikiProject Metal
• WikiProject Black Metal
• WikiProject Alternative music
• WikiProject Punk music
• WikiProject Progressive Rock
• WikiProject Music Directory

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