Battle of Backbone Mountain

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 blues and rhythm and blues genres of African-American music 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 with extended artistic elements, glam rock, highlighting 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...)

The Clash were an English rock band that formed in London in 1976 and were key players in the original wave of British punk rock. Billed as "The Only Band That Matters", they used elements of reggae, dub, funk, ska, and rockabilly, and they contributed to the post-punk and new wave movements that followed punk. For most of their recording career, the Clash consisted of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Joe Strummer, lead guitarist and vocalist Mick Jones, bassist Paul Simonon, and drummer Nicky "Topper" Headon.

The Clash achieved critical and commercial success in the United Kingdom with the release of their debut album The Clash (1977) and their second album Give 'Em Enough Rope (1978). Their experimental third album London Calling, which was released in the UK in December 1979, earned them popularity in the United States, where it was released the following month. A decade later, Rolling Stone named London Calling the best album of the 1980s. Following continued musical experimentation on their fourth album Sandinista! (1980), the band were more successful with the release of Combat Rock (1982), which includes the US top-10 hit "Rock the Casbah", helping the album to achieve a 2× platinum certification there.

In 1982, Headon left the band due to internal friction surrounding his increasing heroin addiction, and Jones departed the following year. With a new lineup, the band released their final album Cut the Crap in 1985 before disbanding a few weeks later.

In January 2003, shortly after the death of Joe Strummer, the band, including original drummer Terry Chimes, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Clash number 28 on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". (Full article...)

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Robert Matthew Van Winkle (born October 31, 1967), known professionally as Vanilla Ice, is an American rapper, actor, and television host. Born in Dallas and raised there and in Miami, he was the first solo white rapper to achieve commercial success following the 1990 release of his best-known hit "Ice Ice Baby".

Ice released his debut album, Hooked, on the independent Ichiban Records before signing a contract with SBK Records, a record label of the EMI Group, which released a reformatted version under the title To the Extreme; it became the fastest-selling hip hop album of all time and "Ice Ice Baby" was the first hip hop single to top the Billboard charts. Followed by the live album Extremely Live (1991), Ice made a cameo appearance on the film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991) where he performed "Ninja Rap", which he co-wrote. He was soon offered and starred in his own film, Cool as Ice (1991), which included the single "Cool as Ice (Everybody Get Loose)" with Naomi Campbell; the film itself was a box office failure.

His fast rise in popularity was quickly marred by media controversies about his background, and criticism about his appeal of hip hop to a mainstream audience alongside MC Hammer. Ice later regretted his business arrangements with SBK, who had also published fabricated biographical information without his knowledge. Ice's second studio album, Mind Blowin' (1994), featured a major image change but was commercially unsuccessful. Following rap rock performances in the underground scene and playing in a local grunge band, Ice released the dark nu metal album Hard to Swallow (1998), followed by the independently-released Bi-Polar (2001) and Platinum Underground (2005).

In the 2000s, Ice began appearing on television reality shows including The Surreal Life. In 2010, Ice began hosting The Vanilla Ice Project on DIY Network which ran for nine seasons until 2019. In 2022 he started another home improvement television program, The Vanilla Ice Home Show. He is also involved in motocross racing and real estate. (Full article...)

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Come to the Well is the fifth studio album by American contemporary Christian band Casting Crowns, released on October 18, 2011, through Beach Street and Reunion Records. The album, which has a predominantly pop rock and rock sound, was based on the Biblical story of the woman at the well. In writing the album, lead vocalist Mark Hall collaborated with songwriters Steven Curtis Chapman, Matthew West, and Tom Douglas. The album received mostly positive reviews from critics, many of whom praised the album's songwriting, and received the award for Top Christian Album at the 2012 Billboard Music Awards.

Although it was projected to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 by music industry analysts, Come to the Well debuted at number two on the chart and number one on the Christian Albums chart with first-week sales of 99,000 units. It also debuted on the Canadian Albums Chart at number sixty-nine and appeared at number eight on the New Zealand Albums Chart in 2012 following the band's appearance at the 2012 Parachute Music Festival. The album has sold over 779,000 copies and has received a Gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The album's lead single, "Courageous", peaked at number one on the Billboard Christian Songs chart and at number four on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart. (Full article...)

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"Mr. Tambourine Man" is a song written by Bob Dylan, released as the first track of the acoustic side of his March 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. The song's popularity led to Dylan recording it live many times, and it has been included in multiple compilation albums. It has been translated into other languages and has been used or referenced in television shows, films, and books.

The song has been performed and recorded by many artists, including the Byrds, Judy Collins, Melanie, Odetta, and Stevie Wonder among others. The Byrds' version was released in April 1965 as their first single on Columbia Records, reaching number 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the UK Singles Chart, as well as being the title track of their debut album, Mr. Tambourine Man. The Byrds' recording of the song was influential in popularizing the musical subgenres of folk rock and jangle pop, leading many contemporary bands to mimic its fusion of jangly guitars and intellectual lyrics in the wake of the single's success. Dylan himself was partly influenced to record with electric instrumentation after hearing the Byrds' reworking of his song.

Dylan's song has four verses, of which the Byrds only used the second for their recording. Dylan's and the Byrds' versions have appeared on various lists ranking the greatest songs of all time, including an appearance by both on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 best songs ever. Both versions received Grammy Hall of Fame Awards.

The song has a bright, expansive melody and has become famous for its surrealistic imagery, influenced by artists as diverse as French poet Arthur Rimbaud and Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini. The lyrics call on the title character to play a song and the narrator will follow. Interpretations of the lyrics have included a paean to drugs such as LSD, a call to the singer's muse, a reflection of the audience's demands on the singer, and religious interpretations. (Full article...)

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Credit: Stefan Krause LAL

Henrik Freischlader performing in Saarbrücken, Germany in 2009.

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• ... that Desulfovibrio vulgaris can remove toxic heavy metals from the environment?
• ... that heavy metal band Judas Priest took their name from Bob Dylan's song "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest"?
• ... that Greg Cooper based the character of suffragist Kate Sheppard in punk-rock musical That Bloody Woman on Bette Midler in concert in Cleveland?
• ... that the Liverpool Echo described British rock and roll star Tommy Steele as "quite unable to sing and play the guitar at the same time" when reviewing his first album?
• ... that Shin Hae-chul, who previously made hard rock and heavy metal albums, was inspired by big band music when he made The Songs for the One?
• ... that the heavy metal band Cradle of Filth released a T-shirt that was so offensive that several people were arrested for wearing it?

Garage rock (sometimes called garage punk or '60s punk) is a raw and energetic style of rock and roll that flourished in the mid-1960s, most notably in the United States and Canada, and has experienced a series of subsequent revivals. The style is characterized by basic chord structures played on electric guitars and other instruments, sometimes distorted through a fuzzbox, as well as often unsophisticated and occasionally aggressive lyrics and delivery. Its name derives from the perception that groups were often made up of young amateurs who rehearsed in the family garage, although many were professional. (Full article...)

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