Like every musical genre, Rock has its subgenres too, which are characterized by different sounds that help the listener to understand the difference between ‘classic rock’ and the subgenre they are listening to at that precise moment. Some subgenres are:
- Pop Rock
- Alternative Rock
- Psychedelic Rock
- Progressive Rock
- Grunge
- Punk
- Thrash Metal (a subgenre of Heavy Metal itself)
Due to my personal choice, we will only talk about three: Psychedelic Rock, Grunge and Thrash Metal.
Psychedelic Rock
Psychedelic rock (sometimes also known as acid rock) is a musical genre derived from rock and developed simultaneously in the United States and the United Kingdom between the 1960s and 1970s. It is inspired by the altered experiences of consciousness resulting from the use of drugs such as cannabis, psilocybin, mescaline, and especially LSD.
The term psychedelic (from the Greek: ψυχή, psyché, ‘soul’ and δηλῶ., dēlô, ‘to reveal’) refers to the altered experiences of consciousness caused by hallucinogens and other narcotics and often understood as a surfacing, through altered perception, of deep and hidden levels of the psyche. The term ‘psychedelic rock‘ was probably coined by the 13th Floor Elevators, who released an album entitled The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators in 1966.
Numerous bands have been and still are part of this genre, such as Jim Morrison’s The Doors, an American band whose 1967 single entitled Light My Fire discusses one of the main themes of acid (or psychedelic) rock: the effects of drugs. In fact, there is a line in the song that says ‘girl we couldn’t get much higher‘ (where the term ‘higher’, in slang, refers to drugs effects).
Apart from The Doors, the pioneers of this genre are, without doubt, Pink Floyd, a British band formed in 1965 by the singer and guitarist Syd Barrett (who was later replaced permanently in 1968 by David Gilmour due to drug problems), the bassist Roger Waters, the drummer Nick Mason and the keyboardist Richard Wright. During the Barrett Era (1965-1968), their style remained faithful to the psychedelic influences of the time, and in fact their first album The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (1967) is considered one of the most important psychedelic compositions in rock.
However, after the end of the Barrett era, Pink Floyd began to go into a post-psychedelic phase (probably due to Barrett’s drug problems), moving closer to progressive rock. This turning point is represented by their fifth studio album Atom Heart Mother, released in October 1970. The participation of a full orchestra and the collaboration with composer Ron Geesin made the title track, originally titled The Amazing Pudding, an important landmark in the progressive world. The name, decided at the last minute, was inspired by the title of a newspaper article about a woman with an atomic pacemaker who had been able to give birth. The cover is also famous, depicting a cow grazing in a meadow and becoming one of the most famous in rock history.
At the end of 1971, the band decided to work on a new project, which would take them to the top of their success in the future. The main themes were the pressures and anxieties of modern life: Waters took care of the lyrics, Gilmour and Wright the music. We are talking about one of the albums that wrote rock history: The Dark Side of the Moon.
The concept album gives a type of conceptual and heterodox music with lyrics of deep philosophical content and reflection on the human condition, an aspect that will characterise the group’s remaining career. The topics covered concern various aspects of human nature: Speak to Me and Breathe (In The Air) speak about the birth and the childhood; Time, within which is incorporated Breathe (Reprise), deals with the theme of ageing and the overwhelming and rapid approach of death, with youth passing before we realise it; The Great Gig in the Sky, is a metaphor for death; Money mocks greed and consumerism; Us And Them refers to conflict, ethnocentrism and the fact that everyone always considers themselves to be on the side of reason; Brain Damage looks at mental illness, shows how insanity is only relative and how old age leads away from who you once were; finally Eclipse, the last track, affirms free will and the randomness of events.
Grunge
Grunge is the music scene born in the 1980s-1990s in Washington State (USA), particularly in Seattle, and came to worldwide success in the early 1990s. The music produced by this scene is also called the Seattle sound. Grunge came to be codified as the anchorage of the traditional song-form whose rules and tones were only modified in a systematically rebellious, pessimistic and violent manner (but above all as nihilistic and self-destructive: unkempt, decadent) with a power, however, always influenced by the classic: a standard 70s rock song (verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo) is now performed with the famous formula noise + chorus + noise.
Grunge is not only a musical style, but also a way of being: the clothes of grunge fashion, consisting of ripped jeans (taken from the New York band Ramones) and an open work shirt with a threadbare t-shirt underneath, are the mirror of the grunge’s existential sense, characterised by many states of mind such as apathy, indifference and life anxiety.
One of the most representative bands of this genre, apart from Chris Cornell’s Soundgarden, Eddie Vedder’s Pearl Jam and Layne Staley’s Alice In Chains, is definitely Kurt Cobain’s Nirvana.
Nirvana – Nevermind (1991)
The second studio album after Bleach (1989), it is one of the most major albums of the 90s and rock in general. Nevermind was the first album recorded by Nirvana for Geffen Records and with Dave Grohl on drums. The compositional technique behind this work is rather homogeneous: the use of pop melodies, with immediate appeal, but flanked by aggressive sounds and vocal lines, almost like punk genre; the use of the ‘classic’ song form (verse-rhythm-rhythm); although the songs composed during this period are less violent, they equally reflect the anger of Cobain’s early compositions. Drain You begins with: ‘One baby to another said I’m lucky to have met you‘, a phrase that Tobi Vail (his ex-girlfriend) had once said to Kurt, and continues with: “It is now my duty to completely drain you“, referring to the power that the girl exerted over him in the dynamics of their relationship. Polly, on the other hand, deals with a different theme, which was inspired to Cobain by a newspaper article about a 14-year-old girl who was kidnapped, tortured, and raped in June 1987. Something In The Way is about the time when Kurt claimed to be living under a bridge near the Wishkah River in Aberdeen (‘Underneath the bridge, tarp has sprung a leak‘), a claim later denied by the band’s bassist Krist Novoselic. As for the famous song Smells Like Teen Spirit, its title originated during a drunken night in the company of his friend Kathleen Hanna, who spray-painted the words ‘Kurt smells like teen spirit‘ on the wall of Cobain’s house, with the intention of ridiculing him. The phrase refers to the deodorant for teenagers that was very popular at the time, ‘Teen Spirit’. Kurt, unaware of its existence until the single became a hit, read it instead as an appreciation referring to the discussion about anarchy and punk rock they had that night, concluding that it still smelled like ‘teen spirit’ and ‘revolutionary’.
Thrash Metal
Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal, combining the techniques of the latter and those of hardcore punk. Its definition is derived from the verb to thrash.
It was born in the United States, from the classic heavy metal and anglo-american hardcore punk fusion. As early as the mid-1970s, several bands in England, including Queen with the song Stone Cold Crazy (Sheer Heart Attack, 1974) and Black Sabbath with Symptom of the Universe (Sabotage, 1975), gave rise to thrash’s roots. A few years later, some speed metal tracks like Exciter (Stained Class, 1978) were produced by Judas Priest, developing the genre better through the use of double bass drums. All of these tracks’ musical features would later contribute to the birth of thrash.
Lemmy Kilmister’s Motörhead was another influential band. Like Judas Priest, they presented fast and robust tracks, e.g. Overkill, from the 1979 homonymous album, which also featured a heavy use of the double bass drum. The band’s heavy and fast style significantly influenced the genre.
Thanks to these bands, thrash metal emerged in the early 1980s in the United States, in the Bay Metropolitan Area of California. The bands belonging to this subgenre are mainly the ‘Big 4’, i.e. Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica and Slayer (the last belonging to the ‘death metal‘ subgenre). Thrash began to gain its own connotations with Metallica and Slayer, who respectively released Kill’Em All and Show No Mercy in 1983, records that began to show a certain stylistic detachment from classic British heavy metal. Shortly afterwards, other groups joined in it, i.e. Anthrax with Fistful of Metal (1984) and Megadeth with Killing is my Business… And Business is Good!(1985).
Among these bands, the greatest contribution was undoubtedly given by Metallica, an American band formed in 1982 by guitarist and singer James Hetfield, bassist Cliff Burton (replaced by Jason Newsted after his death on 27 September 1986, then replaced in 2003 by current bassist Robert Trujillo), lead guitarist Dave Mustaine (later replaced by Kirk Hammett in 1983) and drummer Lars Ulrich.
With their first albums, that is to say Kill ‘Em All (1983), Ride The Lightning (1984) and Master Of Puppets (1986), Thrash Metal assumed a great role in the music of that era. Personally speaking, among these albums, the one that succeeded in making a fundamental mark on the genre is Master Of Puppets, because it fully contains all the features of Thrash Metal, in all its tracks and especially in the title track.
Other very thrashy tracks you have to listen to are Whiplash (Kill ‘Em All), Creeping Death (Ride The Lightning) and Battery (Master Of Puppets).
The American band, after 7 years since the release of Hardwired…To Self-Destruct (2016), returns to the spotlight with the new album 72 Seasons (2023). The title refers to the first eighteen years of a person’s life, which the band describes as formative in terms of experiences and identity. This concept is explored in the album’s lyrics, which speak about themes of growth, trauma, and personal reflections.
Musically, the album maintains Metallica’s classic sound, characterized by powerful guitar riffs, aggressive rhythms, and James Hetfield’s distinctive voice. However, there are also elements that show a maturity and evolution in their style, with tracks ranging from thrash metal energy to more melodic and reflective moments.
