Rockpedia

Timeline

Rock genre Metal genre Event Scene

A genre's date is an approximation that historians argue about. An event is a thing that happened on a day, and is marked differently for that reason.

1950s

  1. 1954 Rock and roll Ground zero: twelve-bar blues sped up, piano hammered hard, lyrics about cars and girls. It made the electric guitar the defining instrument of the century.
  2. 1954 Rockabilly Rock and roll filtered through white country music: slapped upright bass, Sun Studio echo and a vocal hiccup. It gets rediscovered every couple of decades.
  3. 1954 Southern labels start selling R&B to a white teenage audience Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis and the Chess brothers in Chicago find the same formula works in both cities.

1960s

  1. 1961 Surf rock Instrumental, drenched in tank reverb, with fast tremolo picking. The sound of the Californian coast, later recycled by punk and by Tarantino.
  2. 1963 Beat / British Invasion The British took American rock and roll, added vocal harmony and shipped it back across the Atlantic. Both hard rock and pop-rock start here.
  3. 1963 Blues rock Electric blues played louder, longer and with improvised solos. The direct bridge between Muddy Waters and Black Sabbath.
  4. 1963 Garage rock High-school bands, a Farfisa organ and one good idea recorded badly. Attitude beats technique here, and punk descends from it directly.
  5. 1964 Folk rock Folk lyrics played on a twelve-string electric guitar. It taught rock that the words can matter as much as the riff.
  6. 1966 Art rock Rock made by art-school graduates: concept, image and experiment ahead of formula. It overlaps with prog but cares far less about virtuosity.
  7. 1966 Canterbury Canterbury, England, 1966 to 1978
  8. 1966 Psychedelic rock Effects, sitar, feedback and songs that fall apart halfway through. The lab that produced prog, space rock and, indirectly, doom.
  9. 1967 Acid rock The heavy end of psychedelia: raw distortion and endless jams. Blue Cheer is often named the first genuinely heavy band.
  10. 1967 Detroit Detroit, 1967 to 1974
  11. 1967 Proto-punk Garage rock turned hostile and repetitive, with noise and nihilism. Nobody called it punk yet, but everyone at CBGB copied from it.
  12. 1968 Birmingham Birmingham, England, 1968 to 1992
  13. 1968 Canterbury scene Prog with jazz harmony and dry English humour. Looser and stranger than its symphonic neighbours.
  14. 1968 Country rock Pedal steel and three-part harmony over a rock rhythm section. The sound of Laurel Canyon.
  15. 1968 Hard rock 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.
  16. 1968 Krautrock A tireless motorik beat, studio improvisation and a refusal of the chorus. It shaped post-punk, post-rock and electronic music.
  17. 1968 Krautrock West Germany, 1968 to 1975
  18. 1968 Progressive rock Rock with classical ambitions: odd meters, twenty-minute suites, mellotron. The direct foundation of progressive metal.
  19. 1968 Proto-metal The heavy bands from before the term existed: over-amplified acid rock, already built around the riff.
  20. 1969 Southern rock Blues rock with a Southern accent: two or three lead guitars, slide playing and songs as long as a Georgia highway.
  21. 1969 Space rock A repetitive riff under a thick layer of synthesizers and cosmic whoosh. Lemmy went straight from here into Motörhead.

1970s

  1. 1970 Boogie rock One shuffle riff held until exhaustion. Simple by design and impossible to sit still to.
  2. 1970 Celtic rock Traditional Irish and Scottish tunes set on drums and electric guitar. The direct ancestor of folk metal.
  3. 1970 Symphonic prog Orchestral arrangements transposed onto Hammond organ and Moog. Roger Dean cover art included.
  4. 1970 Zeuhl Operatic rock sung in an invented language, with fretless bass and choir. A tiny French branch with fanatical disciples.
  5. 1970-02-13 Black Sabbath release their debut An album that opens with rain, a bell and a tritone - the moment heavy metal becomes a separate thing from hard rock.
  6. 1971 Glam rock Rock in glitter, platform boots and calculated ambiguity. The spectacle is half the music.
  7. 1971 The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East Proof that a blues jam could hold twenty minutes without going stale.
  8. 1974 CBGB becomes the room where American punk assembles A failing Bowery country bar starts booking bands on condition they play their own songs.
  9. 1974 CBGB, New York New York, 1974 to 1978
  10. 1974 Punk rock Three chords, two minutes and zero patience for solos. A full reset of rock, and the second major source of extreme metal.
  11. 1976 Arena rock / AOR Hard rock polished for stadiums and FM radio: huge choruses, keyboards and glossy production.
  12. 1976 London punk London, 1976 to 1979
  13. 1976 Traditional heavy metal The classic form: high vocals, twin lead guitars, choruses to raise a fist to. Leather and studs.
  14. 1977 Oi! / street punk Working-class punk with terrace choruses and lyrics about the pub, the factory and football.
  15. 1977 Pop punk Punk speed, garage-pop choruses and lyrics about suburban boredom.
  16. 1977 The Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash The crash that ended Southern rock's golden era abruptly.
  17. 1978 Avant-prog / RIO Rock in Opposition: dissonance, chamber music and left-wing politics. Prog that refuses on principle to be pleasant.
  18. 1978 New wave Post-punk's commercial face: synthesizers, hooks and jerky rhythms. Punk without the rage, but with the same ideas.
  19. 1978 No wave A total refusal of melody and standard tuning. Short-lived, extreme and hugely influential on noise rock.
  20. 1978 Post-punk Punk asking what comes next: melodic bass up front, dry guitar, space and cold. Possibly the most fertile branch in all of rock.
  21. 1979 Anarcho-punk Total political punk: collectives, self-releasing and militant pacifism. It laid down the DIY ethic the underground still runs on.
  22. 1979 Deathrock The American version, more punk and more theatrical, with tribal drums and horror-movie imagery.
  23. 1979 Gothic rock Post-punk with reverb, chorused guitar and a baritone voice. Its aesthetic passes straight into gothic metal and doom.
  24. 1979 Horror punk Punk with B-movie horror imagery, baritone vocals and mutant doo-wop choruses.
  25. 1979 NWOBHM New Wave of British Heavy Metal: punk speed, twin guitar harmonies and self-releasing on a large scale. The textbook every thrash band studied.
  26. 1979 NWOBHM United Kingdom, 1979 to 1984
  27. 1979 Sounds magazine names the New Wave of British Heavy Metal Neal Kay's club night and a music paper give a name to hundreds of bands releasing their own records.

1980s

  1. 1980 Doom metal The branch most faithful to Black Sabbath: slow tempos, thick riffs and crushing atmosphere. The weight comes from space, not speed.
  2. 1980 Garry Bushell coins 'Oi!' A journalist names England's working-class punk, as opposed to its art-school punk.
  3. 1980 Hardcore punk Punk accelerated to 200 bpm, songs of one minute and shouted vocals. Without it there is no thrash, no grindcore, no metalcore.
  4. 1980 Jangle pop Clean, chiming Rickenbacker guitars and melody everywhere. The building block of indie rock.
  5. 1980 Neo-psychedelia Psychedelia retold by every new generation, with digital studios and rather less mysticism.
  6. 1980 Psychobilly Rockabilly with slapped upright bass, punk speed and lyrics about monsters. Quiff haircut mandatory.
  7. 1980 Washington DC hardcore Washington DC, 1980 to 1991
  8. 1981 Bay Area thrash San Francisco, 1981 to 1991
  9. 1981 Coldwave / minimal wave European post-punk on cheap drum machines: cold synths, distant vocals, the atmosphere of a grey housing block in winter.
  10. 1981 First wave The bands that supplied the name and the themes, while still playing speed or thrash metal. Venom released the album that christened the genre.
  11. 1981 Glam metal Hard rock with hairspray, a radio chorus and a mandatory power ballad. It ruled MTV until 1991.
  12. 1981 Minor Threat invent straight edge A subculture founded in forty-six seconds.
  13. 1981 Neo-prog Prog's 1980s comeback, with digital keyboards, shorter songs and more melodrama.
  14. 1981 Speed metal NWOBHM with the throttle down, but the vocals still melodic. The missing link between heavy metal and thrash.
  15. 1981 Sunset Strip Los Angeles, 1981 to 1991
  16. 1982 Black metal Tremolo picking, blast beats, shrieked vocals and deliberately cold production. More an aesthetic than a technique - atmosphere matters more than clean sound.
  17. 1982 D-beat Named after Discharge's drum pattern: galloping toms, motorcycle guitar and anti-war slogans shouted as choruses.
  18. 1982 Industrial rock Guitars over programmed drums, sampling and factory noise. The bridge to industrial metal.
  19. 1982 Venom release Black Metal An album that supplies a genre with its name a decade before the genre exists.
  20. 1983 Bay Area thrash The original epicentre: technical riffing, clearer production and a little more melody.
  21. 1983 Metallica release Kill 'Em All NWOBHM riffs at hardcore tempos, and thrash metal exists.
  22. 1983 Noise rock Alternate tunings, feedback as an instrument and rhythm sections that hit like machinery. The grandfather of sludge.
  23. 1983 Thrash metal NWOBHM plus hardcore punk: palm-muted riffs, brutal tempos and lyrics about war and society. The first truly extreme branch.
  24. 1983 US power metal The American version, rawer and closer to thrash than its melodic European cousin.
  25. 1984 Crossover thrash The exact point where hardcore and thrash metal merge: metal riffs, skate-park attitude, mandatory circle pit.
  26. 1984 Crust punk D-beat soaked in metal and mud: thick tone, apocalyptic themes, trousers unwashed since 1989.
  27. 1984 Epic doom Doom with operatic vocals and solemn lyrics. Candlemass set the template on their first album.
  28. 1984 Funk rock Slap bass and funk grooves under rock guitars. Rap rock, and through it nu metal, start here.
  29. 1984 Neoclassical metal Bach and Paganini transposed onto a distorted guitar: harmonic minor scales, sweep arpeggios and three-minute solos.
  30. 1984 Power metal Galloping tempos, choral hooks and lyrics about dragons and battles. Optimistic by definition.
  31. 1984 Teutonic thrash The German version: dirtier, faster and much closer to what would become death and black metal.
  32. 1985 'Emocore' is coined in Washington DC A reaction, from inside hardcore, to hardcore's emotionally flat toughness.
  33. 1985 Alternative rock An umbrella for everything that grew outside commercial radio and then conquered it. Defined originally by the college-radio network, not by any one sound.
  34. 1985 Celtic punk Tin whistle, mandolin and accordion over distorted guitar. Irish pub songs turned up to eleven.
  35. 1985 Death metal Guttural vocals, low tunings, blast beats and tremolo picking. Thrash pushed past the limit of legibility, with two founding schools: Florida and Stockholm.
  36. 1985 Dream pop The same reverb haze, but with the melody left on the surface and the tempo slower.
  37. 1985 Emo Hardcore in which the lyrics turn confessional and the voice cracks. The term started as an insult and became an entire decade of fashion.
  38. 1985 Grindcore Hardcore and death metal compressed into songs under a minute, with continuous blast beats. Napalm Death have a song that lasts one second.
  39. 1985 Indie rock Originally an economic description - independent labels - that hardened into an aesthetic: modest production and total freedom.
  40. 1985 Melodic hardcore Same speed and urgency, but with sung choruses and guitar harmonies.
  41. 1985 Post-hardcore Hardcore that allows itself dynamics, empty space and irregular structures. Emo, screamo and mathcore all branch off from here.
  42. 1986 Indie pop / twee Sweet melodies, shy vocals, clean guitars. The gentle reaction to rock machismo.
  43. 1986 Rap rock Rapped vocals over rock riffs. The Run-DMC and Aerosmith collaboration opened the door; Rage turned it into a political weapon.
  44. 1986 Seattle Seattle, 1986 to 1994
  45. 1986 Youth crew / straight edge Hardcore with a code: no alcohol, no drugs, gang vocals and breakdowns. The ethics of the scene became the subject of the songs.
  46. 1987 Palm Desert Palm Desert, California, 1987 to 1996
  47. 1987 Powerviolence Hardcore taken to the limit: abrupt tempo shifts, twenty-second songs, blast beats cut with parts as slow as tar.
  48. 1987 Tampa Tampa, Florida, 1987 to 1995
  49. 1988 Alternative metal Metal weight without the dress code or the scene rules: unconventional structures and influences from post-punk, funk or shoegaze.
  50. 1988 Goregrind Grindcore with pitch-shifted vocals and lyrics from a pathology textbook. Carcass wrote the rules on their first two albums.
  51. 1988 Grunge Punk plus Black Sabbath plus flannel: quiet verse, exploding chorus and lyrics about self-disgust.
  52. 1988 Industrial metal Metal riffs over programmed drums, samples and synths. Mechanical by design.
  53. 1988 Math rock Odd meters and interlocking riffs assembled like a puzzle, usually without vocals. Post-rock's cerebral cousin.
  54. 1988 New Orleans New Orleans, 1988 to 2005
  55. 1988 Progressive metal Prog rock ambition with metal weight: odd meters, concept albums and instrumental virtuosity.
  56. 1988 Ska punk Ska offbeats and a horn section at punk tempo. The third wave of ska, thoroughly American.
  57. 1988 Stockholm death metal Stockholm, 1988 to 1993
  58. 1988 Technical thrash Thrash with dissonant chords, odd meters and bass up front. The bridge between thrash and progressive metal.
  59. 1989 Death metal's first wave records in Tampa and Stockholm Small budgets, local studios, and two production sounds that define a genre for a decade.
  60. 1989 Old school death metal The sound of the first wave: either the Swedish HM-2 buzzsaw or the cavernous American murk, with no showy technicality.
  61. 1989 Shoegaze Walls of cascading guitar effects with the vocals buried in the mix. Named after the habit of staring at the pedalboard on stage.
  62. 1989 Sludge metal Doom plus filthy hardcore: feedback, screamed vocals and a guitar tone like Louisiana mud.

1990s

  1. 1990 Alt-country / Americana Country filtered through punk and indie: same instruments, very different attitude toward Nashville.
  2. 1990 Death-doom Guttural vocals at funeral tempo. Bands from Yorkshire invented the combination and then invented gothic metal too.
  3. 1990 Deathgrind Death metal compressed to the length and speed of grindcore. No intro, no outro.
  4. 1990 Gothenburg Gothenburg, Sweden, 1990 to 1999
  5. 1990 Groove metal Thrash slowed to a groove that hits you in the chest: syncopated riffs, mid-tempo drums, barked vocals.
  6. 1990 Metalcore Hardcore and extreme metal fused: breakdowns, melodic riffing and screamed verses alternating with sung choruses.
  7. 1990 Mincecore Deliberately primitive grindcore with blunt political messages and thousands of appearances on split releases.
  8. 1990 Pagan / Viking black metal Black metal with Norse mythology and folk melodies. Bathory's later albums are the starting point.
  9. 1990 Skate punk Faster, more technical pop punk with two-beat drumming and short solos. The soundtrack to skate videos.
  10. 1990 Stoner rock Thick down-tuned riffs, groovy drums and a fuzz tone. Born at generator parties in the desert.
  11. 1990 Viking metal Norse themes, male choirs and marching tempos. It sounds like a longship, not a tavern.
  12. 1990 War metal / bestial Black and death metal reduced to noise, speed and bullet belts. The least legible branch of metal there is.
  13. 1991 Brutal death metal Built for density and weight: dissonant riffing, low guttural vocals and crushing breakdowns.
  14. 1991 Desert rock The hypnotic, jam-based side of stoner rock, with lots of space between the notes and a warm bass tone.
  15. 1991 Funeral doom The slowest metal in existence: under 40 bpm, organ, guttural vocals and fifteen-minute songs. Music for a single chord.
  16. 1991 Gothic metal Death-doom that adds keyboards, romance and female vocals. It popularised the beauty-and-the-beast formula.
  17. 1991 Helvete, Oslo Oslo, 1991 to 1994
  18. 1991 My Bloody Valentine nearly bankrupt their label Two years and an enormous budget spent on one record.
  19. 1991 Nevermind ends the Sunset Strip Nirvana sign to a major and the industry changes within six months.
  20. 1991 Post-rock Rock instruments used for texture and crescendo rather than for choruses. The song climbs for ten minutes and detonates once.
  21. 1991 Rap metal Rapped vocals over metal riffs, built around groove and a shouted chorus.
  22. 1991 Screamo Emo pushed into hysteria: continuous screaming, cutting guitars and songs that collapse into silence. Also called skramz.
  23. 1991 Second wave The Norwegian scene that fixed the definitive sound: thin guitars, demo-tape production as an ideal, corpse paint.
  24. 1991 Stoner doom Stoner riffs played at half speed, with thick fuzz and subject matter drawn from witchcraft and cannabis.
  25. 1991 Technical death metal Death metal with jazz harmony, tapping and impossible drumming. The more notes per second, the better.
  26. 1991 The circle forms around Helvete in Oslo A record shop becomes the centre of black metal's second wave.
  27. 1992 Industrial metal goes platinum Ministry complete the journey from synth-pop to a factory-floor sound, and sell a million copies of it.
  28. 1992 Lo-fi / slacker rock Recorded on a four-track cassette with the hiss left in deliberately. Indifference as a method.
  29. 1993 Avant-garde metal Metal that imports anything - jazz, cabaret, electronics - and refuses to settle into a shape.
  30. 1993 Beatdown / metallic hardcore Hardcore reduced to breakdowns and slow groove, with barked vocals and lyrics about loyalty and endurance.
  31. 1993 Blackened death metal Death metal structure with black metal atmosphere and subject matter. Often with ritual and stagecraft to match.
  32. 1993 Britpop Britain answers grunge with Beatles-and-Kinks melody and lyrics about ordinary English life.
  33. 1993 Death 'n' roll Death metal that admits its rock roots: groove, blues riffing and a hoarse shout.
  34. 1993 Drone metal Sustained notes at extreme volume, with almost no rhythm. You listen with your body more than your ears.
  35. 1993 Folk metal Traditional instruments and folk melodies built into metal. Every region has written its own version.
  36. 1993 Mathcore Metalcore with its wiring torn out: meter changes every few seconds, dissonance and chaos controlled to the millimetre.
  37. 1993 Melodic death metal Iron Maiden-style guitar harmonies over screamed vocals. The Gothenburg scene later became the foundation of American metalcore.
  38. 1993 Raw black metal Lo-fi production taken to the extreme, often recorded straight to tape. The noise is part of the composition.
  39. 1994 Atmospheric black metal Long songs, hypnotic repetition and synth textures. The landscape matters more than the riff.
  40. 1994 Celtic metal Irish melodies and traditional instruments over black or heavy metal.
  41. 1994 DSBM Depressive suicidal black metal: slower tempos, wailing guitars and desperate vocals. The subject matter is heavy, and the genre is debated inside the scene itself.
  42. 1994 Midwest emo Open tunings and interlocking arpeggios, odd meters and lyrics about autumn and empty rooms.
  43. 1994 Neue Deutsche Härte The German version: simple heavy riffs, danceable synths, declaimed German vocals and a great deal of pyrotechnics.
  44. 1994 Nu metal Seven-string guitars tuned very low, hip-hop groove, a DJ or sampler and lyrics about personal trauma. The decade's best-selling and most disputed genre.
  45. 1994 Oriental metal Middle Eastern modes, oud and traditional percussion built into progressive or death metal.
  46. 1994 Post-grunge The grunge formula cleaned up for radio: same dynamics, less dirt, vastly more airplay.
  47. 1994 Progressive power metal Power metal choruses laid over prog structures and meters.
  48. 1994 Slam death metal Reduces brutal death metal to slow, lurching riffs made purely for moving your head.
  49. 1994 Symphonic black metal Keyboards and choirs over black metal structures. Grand, theatrical and by far the most saleable of the subgenres.
  50. 1995 At the Gates release Slaughter of the Soul The most copied metal record of its decade.
  51. 1995 Instrumental prog metal No vocals: the melody is carried by guitar or keyboard, and the structure can be as complex as it likes.
  52. 1996 Finnish metal Finland, 1996 to 2010
  53. 1996 Symphonic metal Full orchestra and choir treated as equal instruments, usually with an operatic female lead. Metal's most visible face in the European mainstream.
  54. 1996 Symphonic power metal Power metal with orchestra, choir and a fantasy libretto. The more, the better.
  55. 1997 Black 'n' roll Black metal with a rock and roll groove. Darkthrone turned this way on their own after 2006.
  56. 1997 Montreal Montreal, 1997 to 2010
  57. 1997 Post-metal / atmospheric sludge Sludge with post-rock logic: long songs, crescendos and instrumental passages. Neurosis invented the form.
  58. 1998 Cyber metal Mechanised death metal with cold digital production, dual vocals and science-fiction themes.
  59. 1998 Massachusetts metalcore Massachusetts, 1998 to 2007
  60. 1999 Cybergrind Grindcore with programmed drums nobody could play and electronic elements. Made in bedrooms more often than in studios.
  61. 1999 Emo pop The emo formula with a radio chorus and polished production. The version that reached MTV and the shopping mall.
  62. 1999 Melodic metalcore Gothenburg harmonies imported into American hardcore. The dominant formula of the 2000s.

2000s

  1. 2000 Garage rock revival A reaction to nu metal and radio pop: crisp guitars, plain production, narrow suits. It put guitar rock back on festival bills in the 2000s.
  2. 2001 Post-punk revival The same basslines and the same chill, revived every ten years with contemporary production.
  3. 2003 Australian metalcore Australia, 2003 to 2015
  4. 2004 Deathcore Death metal plus metalcore breakdowns: low riffs, two vocal registers and a slow moment where the room erupts.
  5. 2005 NWOTHM New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal: a new generation deliberately playing like it's 1982, down to the tape production.
  6. 2006 Pirate metal Power metal with accordion and lyrics about rum. A small genre, entirely shameless and very effective live.
  7. 2007 'Djent' appears on a guitar forum A genre named by onomatopoeia, for the sound of the riff.
  8. 2007 Blackgaze / post-black Black metal tremolo over shoegaze harmony: the same density, but the result comes out luminous instead of frozen.
  9. 2007 Djent The name imitates the sound: seven- or eight-string guitars, heavily compressed palm mutes and polyrhythms. Meshuggah built the vocabulary; a generation of forum users named it.
  10. 2007 Easycore Pop punk with hardcore breakdowns glued into the middle. Sweet chorus, hammer at the end.

2010s

  1. 2010 Babymetal are assembled as an idol subunit J-pop and metal combined on an apparently absurd premise, backed by some of Japan's finest session players.
  2. 2010 Emo revival A new generation rediscovers the Midwest sound, this time with Bandcamp instead of fanzines.
  3. 2010 Kawaii metal Serious instrumental metal under J-pop idol vocals and choreography. It reads like a joke on paper and works perfectly live.
  4. 2010 Progressive metalcore Metalcore with eight-string guitars, ambient passages and structures borrowed from djent.
  5. 2018 New nu metal The generation raised on Korn and Slipknot brings back low tunings and electronic textures with today's production.