Heartland rock
Encyclopedia
Heartland rock is a genre of rock music
that developed in the 1970s and reached its commercial peak in the 1980s, when it became one of the best-selling genres in the United States
. It was characterized by a straightforward musical style, a concern with the average, blue collar
American
life, and a conviction that rock music has a social or communal purpose beyond just entertainment. The genre is exemplified by the commercial success of singer-songwriter
s Bruce Springsteen
, Bob Seger
, Tom Petty
and John Mellencamp
, along with less widely known acts such as Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and the Iron City Houserockers
. It was also associated with a number of country music
artists including Steve Earle
and Joe Ely
. In the 1990s, many established acts faded and the genre began to fragment, but the major figures have continued to record with commercial success.
, sometimes with elements of Americana
and country
. Most artists avoided the synthezisers that dominated the electronic rock of the 1980s and placed an emphasis on guitars, with a basic rhythm and blues
line-up of drums, keyboards and occasional horn section instruments like a saxophone. Lyrics are often presented in a style that is raspy and unpolished, adding a sense of "authenticity". It was most strongly influenced by American folk
and folk rock
acts such as Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie
, Bob Dylan
, The Byrds
, Creedence Clearwater Revival
, and the Northern Irish
but heavily American-influenced Van Morrison
, as well as the basic rock of 1960s garage
and the Rolling Stones
.
Verses often outline narrative stories, particularly of people undergoing hard times and choruses are often anthemic in tone. It is associated with rural and blue-collar values, particularly those of the predominately white working-class regions of the Midwest and the rust belt
. It has been characterized as a predominately romantic genre, celebrating "urban backstreets and rooftops", and its major themes have been listed as including "unemployment, small-town decline, disillusionment, limited opportunity and bitter nostalgia", as well as alienation and despair.
Many major heartland rock artists began their careers in the 1960s, as with Bob Seger
, or the 1970s, as with Bruce Springsteen
and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
. Springsteen would be the first artist to bring heartland rock to US and international attention, and its most commercially successful exponent. After a series of critically highly regarded, but modestly selling albums with the E Street Band
, he achieved his breakthrough in 1975 with Born to Run
, which presented stories of loss, betrayal, defeat and escape in the context of his native New Jersey shoreline, with songs influenced by 50s rock and roll
, Bob Dylan
and Phil Spector's Wall of Sound
. While Springsteen struggled for three years with legal disputes, other artists in a similar vein came to the fore. These included Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
, Eddie Money
, and fellow Jersey Shore residents Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. In 1978, Springsteen returned with Darkness on the Edge of Town
, which reached the top ten in the US and then the number one album The River (1980), which continued the themes of economic and personal dissolution, produced a series of hit singles, and has been seen as "getting the heartland rock bandwagon rolling", together with the stripped down sound and darker themes of his next album Nebraska
(1982).
The genre reached its commercial, artistic and influential peak in the mid-1980s, with Springsteen's Born in the USA in 1984, which topped the charts worldwide and spawning a series of top ten singles. This decade saw the continued success of established artists and the arrival of new figures including John Mellencamp
(initially recording as Johnny Cougar), who has been described as defining the genre in the 1980s, Michael Stanley
, Joe Grushecky
and the Iron City Houserockers and more gentle singer/songwriters such as Bruce Hornsby
. A number of country music artists like Steve Earle
and Joe Ely
also became associated with the genre. Probably the first significant female artist in the genre was Melissa Etheridge
, whose self titled
debut album issued in 1988 drew critical comparisons with Springsteen and Mellencamp.
Heartland rock had begun to fade as a recognized genre by the early 1990s, as rock music in general, and blue collar and white working class themes in particular, lost influence with younger audiences. However, although some heartland rock artists disappeared from the scene, others continued to record with critical and commercial success, most notably Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and John Mellencamp. Their works have become more personal and experimental and no longer fitted easily into a single genre. Newer artists whose music would perhaps have been labelled heartland rock had it been released in the 1970s or 1980s, such as Missouri's Bottle Rockets
and Illinois' Uncle Tupelo
, were now grouped into alt-country.
and Kid Rock
, who has performed in concert with John Mellencamp and recorded a duet with Bob Seger for the latter's Face the Promise album. His 2008 hit "All Summer Long
" was inspired by Seger's classic "Night Moves
" as well as "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd
. The Killers have been associated with the genre from their studio album, Sam's Town
(2006) which was influenced by Springsteen and in leader Brandon Flowers
solo album Flamingo (2010).
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
that developed in the 1970s and reached its commercial peak in the 1980s, when it became one of the best-selling genres in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. It was characterized by a straightforward musical style, a concern with the average, blue collar
Blue-collar worker
A blue-collar worker is a member of the working class who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled, manufacturing, mining, construction, mechanical, maintenance, technical installation and many other types of physical work...
American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
life, and a conviction that rock music has a social or communal purpose beyond just entertainment. The genre is exemplified by the commercial success of singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
s Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
, Bob Seger
Bob Seger
Robert Clark "Bob" Seger is an American rock and roll singer-songwriter, guitarist and pianist.As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s...
, Tom Petty
Tom Petty
Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T...
and John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp, previously known by the stage names Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American rock singer-songwriter, musician, painter and occasional actor known for his catchy, populist brand of heartland rock that eschews synthesizers and other artificial sounds...
, along with less widely known acts such as Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and the Iron City Houserockers
Iron City Houserockers
The Iron City Houserockers were an American rock band from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, led by singer/guitarist Joe Grushecky, that existed from 1976 until 1984...
. It was also associated with a number of country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
artists including Steve Earle
Steve Earle
Stephen Fain "Steve" Earle is an American singer-songwriter known for his rock and Texas Country as well as his political views. He is also a producer, author, a political activist, and an actor, and has written and directed a play....
and Joe Ely
Joe Ely
Joe Ely is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist whose music touches on honky-tonk, Texas Country, Tex-Mex and rock and roll....
. In the 1990s, many established acts faded and the genre began to fragment, but the major figures have continued to record with commercial success.
Characteristics
The term heartland rock was not coined to describe a clear genre until the 1980s. In terms of style it often uses straightforward rock and rollRock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, sometimes with elements of Americana
Americana (music)
Americana is an amalgam of roots musics formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the American musical ethos; specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and other external influential styles...
and country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
. Most artists avoided the synthezisers that dominated the electronic rock of the 1980s and placed an emphasis on guitars, with a basic rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
line-up of drums, keyboards and occasional horn section instruments like a saxophone. Lyrics are often presented in a style that is raspy and unpolished, adding a sense of "authenticity". It was most strongly influenced by American folk
American folk music revival
The American folk music revival was a phenomenon in the United States that began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob...
and folk rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
acts such as Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, The Byrds
The Byrds
The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...
, Creedence Clearwater Revival
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Creedence Clearwater Revival was an American rock band that gained popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s with a number of successful singles drawn from various albums....
, and the Northern Irish
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
but heavily American-influenced Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...
, as well as the basic rock of 1960s garage
Garage rock
Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that was first popular in the United States and Canada from about 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s, it was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name...
and the Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
.
Verses often outline narrative stories, particularly of people undergoing hard times and choruses are often anthemic in tone. It is associated with rural and blue-collar values, particularly those of the predominately white working-class regions of the Midwest and the rust belt
Rust Belt
The Rust Belt is a term that gained currency in the 1980s as the informal description of an area straddling the Midwestern and Northeastern United States, in which local economies traditionally garnered an increased manufacturing sector to add jobs and corporate profits...
. It has been characterized as a predominately romantic genre, celebrating "urban backstreets and rooftops", and its major themes have been listed as including "unemployment, small-town decline, disillusionment, limited opportunity and bitter nostalgia", as well as alienation and despair.
History
Bob Seger
Robert Clark "Bob" Seger is an American rock and roll singer-songwriter, guitarist and pianist.As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s...
, or the 1970s, as with Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers are an American rock band from Gainesville, Florida. They were formed in 1976 by Tom Petty , Mike Campbell , Benmont Tench , , Ron Blair and Stan Lynch...
. Springsteen would be the first artist to bring heartland rock to US and international attention, and its most commercially successful exponent. After a series of critically highly regarded, but modestly selling albums with the E Street Band
E Street Band
The E Street Band has been rock musician Bruce Springsteen's primary backing band since 1972.The band has also recorded with a wide range of other artists including Bob Dylan, Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler, Air Supply, Dire Straits, David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Stevie Nicks, Tom Morello, Sting, Ian...
, he achieved his breakthrough in 1975 with Born to Run
Born to Run
The album's release was accompanied by a $250,000 promotional campaign by Columbia directed at both consumers and the music industry, making good use of Landau's "I saw rock 'n' roll's future—and its name is Bruce Springsteen" quote. With much publicity, Born to Run vaulted into the top 10 in its...
, which presented stories of loss, betrayal, defeat and escape in the context of his native New Jersey shoreline, with songs influenced by 50s rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
and Phil Spector's Wall of Sound
Wall of Sound
The Wall of Sound is a music production technique for pop and rock music recordings developed by record producer Phil Spector at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, California, during the early 1960s...
. While Springsteen struggled for three years with legal disputes, other artists in a similar vein came to the fore. These included Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers are an American rock band from Gainesville, Florida. They were formed in 1976 by Tom Petty , Mike Campbell , Benmont Tench , , Ron Blair and Stan Lynch...
, Eddie Money
Eddie Money
Eddie Money is an American rock guitarist, saxophonist and singer-songwriter who found success in the 1970s and 1980s with a string of Top 40 hits and platinum albums...
, and fellow Jersey Shore residents Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. In 1978, Springsteen returned with Darkness on the Edge of Town
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Darkness on the Edge of Town is the fourth album by Bruce Springsteen, released in the late spring of 1978. The album marked the end of a three year period of forced hiatus from recording brought on by contractual obligations and legal battling with former manager Mike Appel...
, which reached the top ten in the US and then the number one album The River (1980), which continued the themes of economic and personal dissolution, produced a series of hit singles, and has been seen as "getting the heartland rock bandwagon rolling", together with the stripped down sound and darker themes of his next album Nebraska
Nebraska (album)
-Themes:The album begins with "Nebraska", a first-person narrative based on the true story of 19-year-old spree killer Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, and ends with "Reason to Believe", a complex narrative that renders its title phrase into contemptuous sarcasm...
(1982).
The genre reached its commercial, artistic and influential peak in the mid-1980s, with Springsteen's Born in the USA in 1984, which topped the charts worldwide and spawning a series of top ten singles. This decade saw the continued success of established artists and the arrival of new figures including John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp, previously known by the stage names Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American rock singer-songwriter, musician, painter and occasional actor known for his catchy, populist brand of heartland rock that eschews synthesizers and other artificial sounds...
(initially recording as Johnny Cougar), who has been described as defining the genre in the 1980s, Michael Stanley
Michael Stanley
Michael Stanley is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and disc jockey. Both as a solo artist and with the Michael Stanley Band, his brand of heartland rock was popular in Cleveland and around the American Midwest in the 1970s and 1980s.-Biography:Michael Stanley Gee graduated from Rocky...
, Joe Grushecky
Joe Grushecky
Joe Grushecky is an American rock musician known for his work with the Iron City Houserockers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and for his works since the late the 1980s with his act Joe Grushecky and The Houserockers and his solo career...
and the Iron City Houserockers and more gentle singer/songwriters such as Bruce Hornsby
Bruce Hornsby
Bruce Randall Hornsby is an American singer, pianist, accordion player, and songwriter. Known for the spontaneity and creativity of his live performances, Hornsby draws frequently from classical, jazz, bluegrass, folk, Motown, rock, blues, and jam band musical traditions with his songwriting and...
. A number of country music artists like Steve Earle
Steve Earle
Stephen Fain "Steve" Earle is an American singer-songwriter known for his rock and Texas Country as well as his political views. He is also a producer, author, a political activist, and an actor, and has written and directed a play....
and Joe Ely
Joe Ely
Joe Ely is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist whose music touches on honky-tonk, Texas Country, Tex-Mex and rock and roll....
also became associated with the genre. Probably the first significant female artist in the genre was Melissa Etheridge
Melissa Etheridge
Melissa Lou Etheridge is an American rock singer-songwriter and musician.Etheridge is known for her mixture of confessional lyrics, pop-based folk-rock, and raspy, smoky vocals...
, whose self titled
Melissa Etheridge (album)
Melissa Etheridge is the self-titled debut album by singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge, released in 1988 .The album was re-released on 23 September 2003 as a two-CD remastered edition containing a bonus disc of ten tracks recorded live at the Roxy in Los Angeles and a five-track session from BBC...
debut album issued in 1988 drew critical comparisons with Springsteen and Mellencamp.
Heartland rock had begun to fade as a recognized genre by the early 1990s, as rock music in general, and blue collar and white working class themes in particular, lost influence with younger audiences. However, although some heartland rock artists disappeared from the scene, others continued to record with critical and commercial success, most notably Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and John Mellencamp. Their works have become more personal and experimental and no longer fitted easily into a single genre. Newer artists whose music would perhaps have been labelled heartland rock had it been released in the 1970s or 1980s, such as Missouri's Bottle Rockets
The Bottle Rockets
The Bottle Rockets are an American rock band formed in 1992, currently based in St. Louis, Missouri. The founding members are Brian Henneman , Mark Ortmann , Tom Parr and Tom Ray . Current members are Henneman, Ortmann, John Horton and Keith Voegele...
and Illinois' Uncle Tupelo
Uncle Tupelo
Uncle Tupelo was an alternative country music group from Belleville, Illinois, active between 1987 and 1994. Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, and Mike Heidorn formed the band after the lead singer of their previous band, The Primitives, left to attend college. The trio recorded three albums for Rockville...
, were now grouped into alt-country.
Influence
Heartland rock can be heard as an influence on artists as diverse as Billy JoelBilly Joel
William Martin "Billy" Joel is an American musician and pianist, singer-songwriter, and classical composer. Since releasing his first hit song, "Piano Man", in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and the third best-selling solo artist in the United States, according to...
and Kid Rock
Kid Rock
Robert James "Bob" Ritchie , known by his stage name Kid Rock, is an American singer-songwriter, musician and rapper with five Grammy Awards nominations...
, who has performed in concert with John Mellencamp and recorded a duet with Bob Seger for the latter's Face the Promise album. His 2008 hit "All Summer Long
All Summer Long (Kid Rock song)
"All Summer Long" is the title of a song recorded by Kid Rock. It was released in 2008 as the third single from his ninth studio album Rock n Roll Jesus. The song contains musical and lyrical references to several hit songs of the 1970s, including Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London", and Lynyrd...
" was inspired by Seger's classic "Night Moves
Night Moves (song)
"Night Moves" is a song written and performed by Bob Seger, from his 1976 album Night Moves. Released as a single in December 1976, it eventually reached number four on the Billboard Hot 100 pop singles chart...
" as well as "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band prominent in spreading Southern Rock during the 1970s.Originally formed as the "Noble Five" in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1964, the band rose to worldwide recognition on the basis of its driving live performances and signature tune, Freebird...
. The Killers have been associated with the genre from their studio album, Sam's Town
Sam's Town
-Band:*Brandon Flowers – lead vocals, keyboards, bass *Dave Keuning – guitar, background vocals*Mark Stoermer – bass, background vocals, guitar *Ronnie Vannucci – drums, percussion-Additional musicians:...
(2006) which was influenced by Springsteen and in leader Brandon Flowers
Brandon Flowers
Brandon Richard Flowers is an American musician, best known as the frontman of the Las Vegas-based rock band The Killers. He has also released a solo album titled Flamingo.-Early life:...
solo album Flamingo (2010).