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From Gospel to Grunge - a Rock Time Machine

Posted by ConcertHotels on Fri, 15 November 2013

The history of rock music is pretty interesting. Everyone knows that it's roots lie in genres like Gospel, but what about all the other genres?

How did Cowpunk come about? Or Indie Rock? Or Nu Metal?

These are the sorts of questions we ask ourselves here at Concert Hotels (oh, and other important topics like what we should have for lunch).

Curiosity piqued, we decided to trace the roots of the various rock genres, kinda like 'Who do you think you are?' but for rock music, and then visualize it.

We embarked upon what turned into a mammoth research task, the likes of which none of us have undertaken since college. But we stuck with it. We think it was worth the effort.

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you our Rock Time Machine - click here to journey through 100 years of rock in less than a minute.

And there's more - while we were at it we thought it might be pretty cool to be able to hear a sample of each genre.

So turn your speakers up to 11 (or pop your headphones in if you're the considerate type) - you never know, you might just find a new music genre to fall in love with.


Click image to see the full interactive music graphic(via Concert Hotels).
Leave a Comment
26 comments

Robert C

November 11, 2022

This is a very interesting, cool look back in time about different types of music, I also like how they show the decade or approximate year each style of music came about! Maybe it's peaked my curiosity because I'm over a half century old myself. I like alot of different types of music, but mostly closer to the rock and metal types. Thanks!

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Mateus

August 18, 2020

Hello, I love your website and the initative of representing the history of rock great! However, there are two things I would like to point out: - Sludge Metal's sample audio is mute; - The song of Garage Rock is not corresponding with what it should be. I hope it helps :)

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ConcertHotels

August 18, 2020

Hi Mateus, thanks for pointing out these issues - they have now been fixed. We appreciate your feedback and glad you like the 100 Years Of Rock!

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Lita Haagen

July 17, 2015

Brilliant Idea! Such a map can never be perfectly finished and one might discuss about some of the facts of musical history. The Idea of offering all this music stuff to your visitors is great. I wish we had more of those over here too. Greetings from Germany, Lita Haagen, Vocke & Haagen Musikagentur Live Music and Dinner Shows for Hotels and Restaurants

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ConcertHotels

July 17, 2015

Thanks for your kind feedback Lita, we're glad you appreciate the rock piece and hope you enjoy some of the other pieces on our Sound Board.

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Mark

March 4, 2015

Heavy Metal was invented by Black Sabbath it's absurd that the given example is Led Zeppelin. Boooo.

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Nissim Elias

July 15, 2014

FUNtastic, I'm loving it and would like to link this to my upcoming new music-rating website! If I'm not mistaken then you are also missing the very significant sub genre of NWOBHM - New Wave of British Heavy Metal, with bands such as Maiden, Saxon, Diamond Head.

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Pascual Aparicio

February 6, 2014

Where's Soul? Northern Soul? Bogaloo?

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Pascual Again

February 6, 2014

So.. you don't know what Aretha Franklin, The Ronnettes, Marvin Gaye, AAAAAALLLL Motown, Atlantic and Decca dids from 20 years, that becomes Amy Winehouse, Eli PaperBoy Reed, Ben L'oncle, Adele...?

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Samji

January 21, 2014

Steam punk?

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Morgoth Bauglir

March 16, 2021

a lifestyle, not a rock genre

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FMJohnson

January 13, 2014

Bluegrass is not "Pre-1900" and is not the ancestor of country. Bluegrass as a separate and distinct style of music didn't exist until the 1940s. "In 1948, what would come to be known as bluegrass emerged as a genre within the post-war country/western-music industry..." (from Wikipedia). It descended from string band and early country music, which themselves descended from Appalachian/Celtic music. If you make no other change to your graphic, you need to move "Bluegrass" to the 1940s and make it a descendent of Country, with Country a descendant of earlier forms such as Western, Anglo-Celtic, and Appalachian.

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Víctor Martín Iglesias

January 12, 2014

I'd like to print it, is it possible to download as an image somewhere?

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ConcertHotels

January 13, 2014

Hi Victor, the image can be found here: 100 years of rock image. Hope that helps!

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KiM

January 8, 2014

Great! Now add the dance music, please! Those genres NOT in iTunes. see www.thomson.co.uk/blog/2011/10/how-music-travels-infographic/

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ConcertHotels

January 9, 2014

Watch this space! This could be something we are working on ;)

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Helena Gautier

May 6, 2014

What KiM said! The Electronica/dance/techno tree would be very interesting!

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Alex

January 7, 2014

The actual samples seem to be a bit off in terms of matching specific genres. Something to do with iTunes meta info maybe?

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Scott

January 6, 2014

Fab-O! Another suggestion: spirituals->mento->ska->rocksteady->reggae->dub->dancehall.

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Surf Music missed Arabic Folk

January 6, 2014

Listen to Surf Rock like Dick Dale's Misirlou and check it's origins: solidly Greek/Arabic/Armenia folk based. Maybe you can lump Jan & Dean or Beach Boys into "Mexican Folk" in a Ritchie Valens La Bamba sense if you tilt your ear just right. But seriously, take your pick: Pipeline, Wipe Out, etc. it's all Arabic notes and rhythms. Hopefully this omission isn't some racist BS censorship from the "War" on Terror. Facts are facts.

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Rock music

December 25, 2013

Nice list with animation but Nugaze/Neogaze term was used for new wave shoegaze bands. Overall style not exist. Under example is not nugaze band but Noise Pop revivalist. Also where is important Britpop (Oasis, Blur, Suede), Slowcore (Red House Painters, Codeine)?

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Zikaloo

November 26, 2013

What happened with "Rock in Opposition"?

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Lalo

November 21, 2013

What happened with reggae???

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To Mega Therion

November 20, 2013

Not sure how slave music predates Celtic Folk. Pretty sure it's the other way round. The Metal section is an absolute shambles. Details aside, musicologically speaking (in terms of phrasing and structure), Black & Death Metal are more direct links to Classical music than most of these other genres. Despite Malmsteen sounding like a direct imitation of Baroque and Classical - without being subjective, At The Gates' 'The Red in the Sky is Ours' has more of a Classical sound and spirit to it, and this is an archetypal Metal album. The Map of Metal (mapofmetal.com) which is the obvious inspiration for this infographic, is a much better although still not perfect, overview of the genre. Splitting 'Progressive Rock' into Prog, 'Kraut Rock' and 'Space Rock' is a bit redundant too. Very good linkbuilding idea, though.

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Beth

November 19, 2013

This is an awesome piece of work! James, Indiepop is there - is that not the same as Britpop...??

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James

November 19, 2013

This is awesome - totally loving the visual, and the soundbites are fun and really help to show how the different music genres merged and developed over time. With any study such as this, I'm sure there are going to be missing genres - perhaps Britpop deserves an entry? I'm being picky though, I think it's very cool!

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