Your way in
Hard rock 1968
Louder volume, thicker riffs, vocals pushed to the edge. Heavy metal splits off from it, but hard rock stays closer to the blues and to the chorus.
- Heaviness
- 6
- Speed
- 6
- Melody
- 8
- Where from
- UK / USA
- Tempo
- 100-140 bpm
- Song length
- 4-7 min
- Written about
- Sex, The road, Mythology, borrowed loosely, Nothing in particular, at volume
- Vocals
- Sung
Why this one
| You said | Hard rock | Match | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| No words at all When someone is singing, what should come out? | clean | 80% | ×3 |
| There, but not the point How much weight do you want behind it? | 6 out of 10 | 90% | ×2 |
| The beginnings Does it matter when it was made? | 1968 | 100% | ×1 |
| Somewhere else entirely What should the words be about? | Sex, The road, Mythology, borrowed loosely, Nothing in particular, at volume | 100% | ×1 |
| Weighted mean | 89% | ||
Ranked over all 150 genres in the encyclopedia, on the 4 answers you gave, weighted vocals 3, heaviness 2, era 1, about 1 out of 7. Hard rock ties with the next, and won on being the broader of the two. Where two genres score the same the broader one wins, because a genre with subgenres under it is somewhere to carry on from and a leaf is a full stop.
Five records, in this order
- 1Start one step outside
Cream, Fresh Cream 1966
Cream - Sunshine of Your Love. The riff that showed how thick a trio could sound.
The pick names a track. This is the record the encyclopedia holds by them.
- 2The one to put on first
- 3Then
- 4Then
- 5Then
The first is the entry point for Blues rock, one step outside, so the second record has something to be heard against. After it come Hard rock's essential records in the order the encyclopedia lists them. Every one of these has a page here with links out to somewhere it can be played.
If that is not it
-
Space rock 89%
A repetitive riff under a thick layer of synthesizers and cosmic whoosh. Lemmy went straight from here into Motörhead.
4 steps from Hard rock, meeting it only at Rock.
The way into Space rock -
Symphonic prog 85%
Orchestral arrangements transposed onto Hammond organ and Moog. Roger Dean cover art included.
4 steps from Hard rock, meeting it only at Rock.
The way into Symphonic prog
Not simply the second and third of the ranking: those are almost always near neighbours of the first, which is three names for one suggestion. An alternate has to sit at least 4 steps through the tree from the headline and from the other alternate, which is the same floor the "sounds like this, but isn't" panel uses.
What your answers ruled out
- No words at all put 33 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Black metal, Death metal, Grindcore. Worth 3 of 7.
- The beginnings put 67 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Folk metal, Metalcore, Nu metal. Worth 1 of 7.
- Somewhere else entirely put 106 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Punk rock, Hardcore punk, Alternative rock. Worth 1 of 7.
Counted as genres scoring 20% or less on that answer alone. A recommendation that only shows what it chose is hiding half of what it did.