A History of Rock Music

by Piero Scaruffi

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Other books by piero scaruffi: A History of Jazz Music 1900-2000 | A History of Popular Music

TM, ®, Copyright © 2002 Piero Scaruffi. All rights reserved.

"If I were not a physicist, I would be a musician" (Albert Einstein)

Table of Contents

Preface

  1. The Beginnings
    1. Background: The 20th Century (**)
    2. Rock'n'Roll 1951-57
    3. Before the Flood 1957-1962 (**)
    4. Trouble in Paradise 1961-1964 (**)
    5. The Flood 1964-1965
    6. Paradise Reborn 1963-1965
    7. The Counterculture 1965-66
  2. The Golden Age
    1. Psychedelia 1965-68
    2. The age of the revivals 1966-69
    3. Solo careers 1967-69
    4. Electronics and rock 1968-70
    5. Progressive-rock 1968-72 (**)
    6. Canterbury 1968-73
    7. Kosmische Musik 1969-72
    8. Hard-rock 1969-73
    9. The Avantgarde (**)
    10. Appendix: Best albums of the 1960s
  3. The Seventies
    1. Psychedelic madness
    2. Re-alignment (**)
    3. Singer songwriters (**)
    4. Decadence 1969-76
    5. Sound
    6. The auteurs
    7. Disco-music
    8. The avantgarde (**)
    9. Appendix: Best albums of the early 1970s
  4. Punk and New Wave
    1. USA: The New Wave
    2. UK: Punk-rock
    3. USA: The Blank Generation
    4. USA: American Graffiti
    5. UK: British Graffiti
    6. USA: Dance music for punks
    7. UK & USA: Gothic rock
    8. UK, Australia, Europe, Japan, USA: Industrial Music
    9. USA & Europe: Hardcore
    10. USA: College-pop
    11. UK & Australia: The New Wave of Pop and Synth-pop
    12. USA, UK & Japan: Neo-progressive
    13. USA: Noise-rock
    14. USA, Australia & UK: Psychedelic Revival, Dream-pop, Shoegazing
    15. USA, UK, Europe: The Golden Age of Heavy Metal
    16. USA & UK: Songwriters of the 1980s
    17. USA: Roots-rock of the 1980s
    18. USA & UK: DJs, rappers, ravers (**)
    19. USA, Europe, Japan: the New Age and World-music (**)
    20. USA: Space-pop
    21. USA & Australia: Extreme hardcore
    22. USA, Europe, Britain: Industrial-metal
    23. USA, Britain, Japan: Punk crossovers
    24. USA: From noise-rock to post-rock
    25. Appendix: Best albums of the 1980s
  5. The Nineties
    1. Noisier than rock
    2. Progressive sounds
    3. Post-psychedelia
    4. Surf and garage music
    5. Lo-fi pop
    6. Lo-fi singer-songwriters
    7. The second coming of Industrial music
    8. Slo-core
    9. Dance-music in the age of Techno
    10. Foxcore
    11. Brit and non-Brit pop
    12. Alt-pop
    13. Grunge
    14. Hip-hop of the 1990s (**)
    15. Roots-rock in the age of Alt-country
    16. The Age of Emocore
    17. From grindcore to stoner-rock
    18. Gothic rock
    19. Drum'n'bass
    20. Trip-hop
    21. Post-rock
    22. The ambient avantgarde in the digital age (**)
    23. Africa (*)
    24. Glitch music and digital minimalism (*)
    25. Appendix: Best albums of the 1990s
  6. Errors found in the printed version, and assorted additions:
  7. Appendix (*)
    1. Appendix: Chronology of Events
    2. Appendix: Best rock albums
    3. Appendix: Highest scoring artists
    4. Alphabetical index
    5. Appendix: Chronology of the USA
    6. Appendix: Chronology of Britain
    7. Appendix: History of German rock
    8. Appendix: History of Japanese rock
    9. Appendix: History of Italian rock
    10. Appendix: History of French rock
    11. Appendix: History of Scandinavian rock
  8. Other genres (*)
(*) = This chapter is not included in the print version. It will appear in a future book on popular music of the 20th century.

(**) = Portions of this chapter (the ones that deal with "national" roots, such as salsa, tango or Italian singer-songwriters), or non-rock music (hip-hop, avantgarde, etc), are not included in the print version. They will feature in a future book on popular music of the 20th century.

Several minor musicians were also omitted from the 550-page print version in order to stay withing the 550-page limit.

The alphabetical index is not included in the print version (also because of page limits).

TM, ®, Copyright © 2002 Piero Scaruffi. All rights reserved.

  • Chronology of Rock Music
  • Profiles of 1980's bands
  • Profiles of US bands of the 1990's
  • Profiles of non-US bands of the 1990's
  • Profiles of 1970's bands
  • Profiles of 1960's bands
  • Profiles of 1950's bands
  • Cronologie della Musica rock
  • Schede anni '80
  • Schede anni '90 USA
  • Schede anni '90 non-USA
  • Anni '70
  • Anni '60
  • Anni '50
  • Lebenslauf der musiker der 80ziger
  • Lebenslauf der U.S. musiker
  • Lebenslauf der nicht-U.S. musiker
  • Chronologie der Rock Musik