Which band best typifies "hard rock"?

Cafe Society
61

They did only a few albums and didn’t last long. Nobody in the psychedelic era wanted to look at guys in white tie playing oboe duets, even if they rocked out. However, their leader was Michael Kamen who later became a major film composer.

He was also responsible for the great lost masterpiece of classical/rock. I saw him (and maybe the whole Ensemble) with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra playing one of his rock ballets. That remains to this day the single greatest crossover I’ve ever heard. But no recording was made, no mention of it can be found anywhere, as if I merely hallucinated the concert.

All I can say is that if I can hallucinate music of that magnitude then why can’t I carry a tune in a bucket?

62

To use your beer analogy, it’s more like the difference between stout and porter. There’s a difference, but it’s very subtle, and almost never apparent, except from the label on the bottle.

I mean, I’m not exactly sure what would make Black Sabbath or Judas Priest metal, and AC/DC hard rock.

63

Some of it is simply how they market themselves. I think Black Sabbath initially assumed they were Hard Rock because Metal wasn’t really a thing yet. Maybe Metal should just be considered a sub-genre of Hard Rock and Hard Rock a very broad genre. So Metal bands are Hard Rock bands too.

ETA: Beevis may have helped AC/DC maintain an on-going status as the face of Hard Rock.

64

That’s pretty much how I always conceived of it, with very blurry dividing lines that encompass stuff like grunge, harder rock bands like AC/DC, and the glam metal bands like Guns 'n Roses. I mean, metal seems a bit extreme for a glam metal band, but hard rock isn’t really entirely descriptive either. Same with grunge- it’s sort of metal, sort of hard rock, but also not wholly either one.

65

I think the term Power Pop was either invented by Townshend or by someone writing about the Who (Nik Cohn?)

66

I just cannot think of The Who as hard rock. But maybe the rock has been getting harder over the years.

67

…and many many more in the same vein. Yes, AC/DC, of course, first band that came to my mind too. Who else?
Then reading the various answers there were some good alternative ideas, but AC/DC, Deep Purple and Led Zep and perhaps The Who stand out… from the ones mentioned.
What surprises me a lot is that nobody has mentioned Motörhead, Iron Maiden or The Ramones so far. So I do.

And Neil Diamond and Leonard Cohen, of course /ducks and runs away!

68

They did nuance. Is “Big Balls” about well-attended parties or well-endowed genitalia? It’s impossible to know!

:wink:

69

Motörhead certainly rocked like hell, and they are the reason that I have permanent hearing loss. :wink: I think of them as sort of “punk heavy metal.”

The Ramones, too, rocked hard, but I think a lot of people (myself included) classify them as punk rock. (But, then, is punk rock essentially a subset of hard rock?)

70

Yeah, I own them my tinnitus too, at least partially. And yes, I believe that punk rock is a subset of hard rock, at least the Ramones version. And the Dead Kennedys too!

71

AC/DC. Hands down. But first, hands raised with Devil horns.

72

I agree that AC/DC typify hard rock.

The Who typify greatness. :sunglasses:

73

Not hard rock:

The Who. Songs like ‘Eminence Front’, ‘Sea and Sand’ and ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ are far from hard rock, and The Who had a LOT of songs like that. Love them, but not hard rock. They had hard rock songs, but it didn’t define them. Plus, they rode scooters and wore their hair neat. That will not do. Still one of my favorite bands, though.

Cream, Blind Faith, etc. All more blues based than hard rock.

Def Leppard, Whitesnake, Kiss, etc. Hair bands, glam rock, arena rock maybe, but not hard rock.

Hard Rock:

Guns N’ Roses. To me, the epitome of hard rock, ahead of AC/DC
AC/DC
70’s Aerosmith, before the video era.
Deep Purple
Alice in Chains
Pantera
Rammstein

On the Bubble:

Led Zeppelin - The could rock hard, but also did a lot of blues stuff. Docked an extra point for Lord of the Rings fanboyism. Don’t get me wrong, I love LOR, but it can hurt your rock cred.

Black Sabbath: More metal/experimental than hard rock.

Judas Priest/Iron Maiden, Motorhead, etc: Maybe hard rock, maybe metal.

Heart - They can rock as hard as Led Zeppelin. In fact, their early career was as a Led Zeppelin cover band. Go check out some of their Led Zep covers - they’re great. Docked points for their 80’s MTV soft-rock stuff and 70’s soft rock like ‘Dog and Butterfly’. Points added back because Nancy Wilson.

Van Halen - Again, capable of supreme hard rock, but too many pop songs and Gimmicky schtick.

Not hard rock, but could be when they wanted:

The Beatles: Not thought of as a ‘hard rock’ band, but they had hard rock songs, heavy metal songs, etc. And their hard rockers rocked pretty hard (Helter Skelter, Revolution, Birthday, etc)

The Eagles: Geneeally soft rock/MOR/Country Rock, but they had some blistering rock songs like “Life in the Fast Lane”. But damned few of them.

Warren Zevon: He wasn’t held to any genre of music, but listen to “Boom Boom Mancini”, “Lawyers Guns and Money” or “Jungle Work”. When he wanted, he coild rock with anyone.

74

I know some might consider them more heavy metal, but surely Jethro Tull deserves a place in this discussion.

:wink:

75

@Sam_Stone nails it. I agree with almost every word.

76

I saw what you did there. James Hetfield is going to come to your house and eat your little piano.

77

Kick it Out, Straight On, and Mistral Wind. Magic Man, White Lightning and Wine, and Little Queen are neither hard nor soft so shouldn’t be counted for or against being hard rock.

78

The Who was my first thought before opening the thread.

But I hadn’t thought of AC/DC, which works better for me.

mmm

79

I’m not sure they quite qualify but how about The James Gang, at least the first two albums?

80

How about the band with the exploding drummers that turned it up to 11?