Hard Rock

Pioneers of hard rock and heavy metal whose sound defined a decade.

Theatrical rock virtuosos behind some of the most-performed anthems ever.

Mod-era originators of the rock opera and explosive live performance.

Riff-driven hard rock perfectionists with one of the best-selling catalogs in music.

The Birmingham band credited with inventing heavy metal.

Jim Morrison-fronted psychedelic rock unit blending poetry and dark blues.

Sunset Strip rockers whose debut became one of the best-selling debuts ever.

Boston's bad-boy hard rockers with a multi-decade comeback.

Foundational hard rock outfit whose riffs anchor metal's lineage.

Twin-guitar New Wave of British Heavy Metal champions and global metal ambassadors.

Canadian power trio synonymous with virtuoso progressive hard rock.

Dave Grohl-led rock workhorse, the most successful post-Nirvana band.

Birmingham metal lifers who codified the leather-and-steel metal aesthetic.

Lemmy's furious power trio fusing punk speed with metal volume.

Eddie Van Halen's tapping techniques rewired what hard rock guitar could do.

Face-painted New Yorkers whose theatrical shows scaled rock to spectacle.

Texas blues-rock trio whose long beards and tight grooves became iconic.

British supergroup behind a string of bluesy hard-rock hits.

British blues-rock outfit whose 'All Right Now' became a hard-rock standard.

Layered guitar arena rock whose debut became one of rock's biggest sellers.

Bay Area arena-rock stars whose anthems remain karaoke staples.

Anglo-American FM-rock hitmakers blending hard rock and AOR.

Wilson sisters-led hard rock band among the most successful female-fronted ever.

Rockford power-poppers behind a legendary live album from Budokan.

Phil Lynott's Dublin band combining twin-guitar harmonies and storytelling.

Ritchie Blackmore's post-Purple project bridging hard rock and neoclassical metal.

David Coverdale's bluesy hard-rock outfit turned MTV-era hitmaker.

Sheffield band whose layered hard-pop took NWOBHM to the masses.

New Jersey arena rockers behind the most enduring 80s glam-metal hits.

Sunset Strip excess incarnate, the genre's biggest tabloid stars.

Josh Homme's hooky desert-rock project and rock radio mainstay.

Loose, swaggering rock-and-roll duo with a sense of humor.

Sydney trio mining Sabbath and Zeppelin riffs for a new generation.

Helsinki goth-rock band whose 'love metal' brand crossed Atlantic borders.

Solingen metal veterans behind 'Balls to the Wall' and a steady career arc.

Hannover hard-rock band whose 'Wind of Change' soundtracked the post-Cold-War era.

Detroit revolutionaries whose live energy lit the fuse for punk.

Marc Bolan's glam-rock band who turned boogie riffs into chart gold.

Wolverhampton glam-rock chant-makers who fueled British 70s pop.

British glam-pop hitmakers turned tougher rock as the 70s wore on.

Hereford glam-rock band whose 'All the Young Dudes' became a generational anthem.

British twin-guitar rock band whose 'Argus' helped invent the dual-lead style.

London hard-rock veterans of fantasy lyrics and classical-inflected riffs.

British band whose Schenker-era LPs became NWOBHM blueprints.

Yorkshire NWOBHM mainstays of working-class metal anthems.

Stourbridge NWOBHM band whose 'Am I Evil?' became a thrash standard.

Paris band that became France's biggest 80s rock act.

Melbourne brothers whose 'Are You Gonna Be My Girl' became a 2000s rock standard.

Sydney pub-rock turned protest-rock, fronted by future minister Peter Garrett.

Adelaide pub-rock institution with deep cultural roots in Australia.

Melbourne glam-rockers whose costumes and satire defined Aussie 70s rock.

Melbourne pub-rock big-band of brassy anthems and beloved deep cuts.

Toronto power trio of hard-rock anthems and progressive flourishes.

Winnipeg blue-collar hard-rockers behind 'Takin' Care of Business'.

Calgary band synonymous with 'Working for the Weekend' and red leather pants.

Halifax-formed band who became a Canadian classic-rock institution.

Winnipeg pioneers behind 'American Woman' and Canadian rock's first big export.

Toronto-formed band whose 'Born to Be Wild' coined 'heavy metal thunder'.

Young's ragged-glory band of feedback and moonlit Americana.

Norwood post-grunge mainstays of 2000s active-rock radio.

Hanna, Alberta band whose post-grunge anthems made them global hitmakers.

Vancouver post-grunge band aligned with the Nickelback-era radio sound.

Bradford band who pivoted from goth post-punk into AC/DC-tinged hard rock.

York, Pennsylvania alt-rockers whose 'Throwing Copper' was a 90s ubiquity.

Chris Cornell-RATM supergroup of brawny post-grunge rock.

GN'R-Weiland supergroup who briefly revived 90s arena hard rock.

London band fronted by Skin, whose Britrock crunch broke into late-90s charts.

Belfast trio whose noise-pop crunch made them 90s UK rock mainstays.