Rock Music in the 80's and 90's

​The 1980s saw the rise of super-bands; bands which were known internationally, such as Eagles, America, Supertramp. The sound was big, recording was slick due to improvements in the use of synthesisers (invented in 1964 by Robert Moog) which duplicate the shape of sound waves; Digital synthesisers overnight made all others obsolete. Computer generated sounds had begun to have an impact.

The heavy rock of the 1970s had developed into heavy metal with Metallica, Guns’n’Roses and Nirvana in the 1980s, and death metal and thrash or speed  metal and funk metal to follow in the 1990s.

But one of the truly ‘new’ styles of the late 1980s and early 1990s was the style known first as ‘RAP’. Rap was a way of rhythmically speaking the lyrics to a song rather than singing them. Bands included Run DMC, Public Enemy and Vanilla Ice.

​New techniques featured in this music called ‘scratching’ ‘break mixing’ and ‘phasing’, and the DJ became a performer by mixing the sound of the record player into the song.

Alternative rock (also called alternative music, alt-rock, or simply alternative) is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commercial rock or pop music.

​Some examples of Alternative Rock bands are:

Nirvana.

Alice In Chains.

Soundgarden.

Green Day.

Radiohead.

Pearl Jam.

R.E.M.

Foo Fighters

​Smashing pumpkins

​Rage Against the Machine

​A 'Riff' is a repeated sequence of notes or chords that appears in a piece of music.