How to browse (30 seconds)
Guide → one band → Timeline
Start with Guide for a few concrete terms, open one Decisive band page, then use Timeline / Genres when you want the map.
01
Guide — short explainers, no quiz
02
One Decisive band — scroll the chapters
03
Timeline — nine eras; jump by tab or scroll
04
People graph — shared members between bands
First visit path
Decisive bands
Core acts with long-form pages. Coverage expands via the Canon list.
1954
Elvis Presley
Memphis artist filed as band-node: 1954–58 Sun/RCA singles made rock’n’roll a mass US youth format via radio, TV, and film.
1955
Chuck Berry
St. Louis guitarist/writer whose Chess singles (1955–58) fixed duck-walk showmanship and double-stop guitar intros as rock’n’roll’s teaching dialect.
1960
The Beatles
Liverpool four-piece that moved from Invasion singles to album-as-unit and studio-as-instrument between 1963 and 1969; default settings later rock keeps rewriting.
1962
The Rolling Stones
London blues-rock band that sustained riff-based hard rock and stagecraft from 1960s singles through Exile-era peak and decades of touring.
1964
The Who
London four-piece that fused power-chord pop, live destruction lore, and Townshend concept albums (Tommy, Who’s Next) into hard-rock theatre.
1965
Pink Floyd
London band that moved from Syd Barrett psychedelia to Waters/Gilmour concept albums; Dark Side (1973) and The Wall (1979) set album-length production as mass rock.
1966
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
London-based trio (1966–69) that made feedback, wah, and studio guitar effects a lead vocabulary on Are You Experienced and Electric Ladyland.
1968
Black Sabbath
Birmingham four-piece whose 1970 debut fixed tritone riffs, down-tuned guitar, and occult-tinged lyric as heavy metal’s separable identity from hard rock.
1968
King Crimson
Robert Fripp–centered progressive band whose radical lineup versions—from In the Court (1969) to 1980s dual-guitar—treat reformation as method.
1968
Led Zeppelin
London four-piece that scaled blues and folk forms to arena hard rock; Led Zeppelin II–IV and Physical Graffiti remain the citation set for riff weight and dynamic range.
1968
Rush
Toronto trio that kept prog-length writing and instrumental virtuosity on rock radio through the 1970s–80s; Moving Pictures (1981) is the mass hinge.
1970
Queen
London four-piece that combined multi-section songwriting, stacked vocals, and hard-rock guitar on 1970s FM radio; A Night at the Opera (1975) is the proof album.
1973
AC/DC
Australian hard-rock band that treated open-chord riffs and fixed lineup craft as a durable product line from the Bon Scott era through Back in Black (1980).
1975
Sex Pistols
London punk band whose 1976–77 singles and Never Mind the Bollocks reset UK rock’s tempo, manners, and tabloid scale in under two years.
1975
Talking Heads
CBGB-origin art-funk band; Remain in Light (1980, Eno) fused polyrhythm, looped guitar, and Byrne’s vocal into new-wave’s densest studio peak.
1976
Joy Division
Salford/Manchester post-punk four-piece; Unknown Pleasures (1979) and Closer (1980) fixed cold bass-led songs and Martin Hannett production before Curtis’s death ended the band.
1976
The Clash
London punk band that widened UK punk into reggae, rockabilly, and album-length politics; London Calling (1979) is the double-album hinge.
1977
The Police
London trio that fused reggae upstrokes, new-wave tightness, and pop melody into early-1980s global rock radio.
1981
Metallica
LA/Bay Area thrash band that scaled underground speed metal to mainstream rock radio via Master of Puppets (1986) and the Black Album (1991).
1982
The Smiths
Manchester four-piece that set jangle guitar and literary lyric as 1980s UK indie’s default; The Queen Is Dead (1986) is the peak album citation.
1985
Guns N' Roses
LA hard-rock band; Appetite for Destruction (1987) reset late-80s metal radio toward street-blues riffs before grunge’s chart takeover.
1985
Radiohead
Abingdon five-piece that moved from UK alternative hits to OK Computer (1997) and Kid A (2000) studio mutation while keeping a stable lineup.
1987
Nirvana
Aberdeen/Seattle trio whose Nevermind (1991) made quiet-loud dynamics and anti-idol posture the early-90s alternative default on MTV and rock radio.
1991
Oasis
Manchester Britpop band that restored loud, Beatles-citing guitar anthems to mid-90s UK charts against grunge’s US dominance.
1998
The Strokes
NYC five-piece whose Is This It (2001) reset early-2000s indie toward compressed garage-pop and leather-jacket cool after nu-metal radio.
2002
Arctic Monkeys
Sheffield band that rose via mid-2000s online demos then Whatever People Say I Am (2006); later records shifted toward slower, R&B-tinged rock without lineup break.
2007
Tame Impala
Kevin Parker’s Perth project; Lonerism (2012) and Currents (2015) made solo-studio psychedelic pop a festival-headliner format.
2017
Fontaines D.C.
Dublin post-punk band; Dogrel (2019) onward put Irish place-name lyric and dry, driving guitars on late-2010s/2020s indie festival stages.