Hard Rock

Since the birth of rock and roll and its diverse children, bands have been cranking up the volume and pounding out heavy sounds. Listen to The Kinks "You Really Got Me" from 1964 or Cream’s "White Room" from 1968. Even The Beatles liked to smash it out now and then, as "Helter Skelter" from The Beatles (also 1968) raucously demonstrates.
As the 1960s stumbled into the 1970s, however, a proliferation of well-amplified bands founded the sub-genre we know as hard rock. Deep Purple, Steppenwolf, Blue Cheer, Vanilla Fudge, Zoot, and of course the mighty Led Zeppelin took rock by the scruff of the neck and guitar-ed the hell out of it, often with a charismatic lead singer out front.
Although much of this music was (and is) based in blues-rock (Free, Thin Lizzy, Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs), other bands used keyboards (particularly synthesisers) to expand the palette beyond the common-time march. Uriah Heep, Queen, Alice Cooper and metal pioneers Black Sabbath stayed hard, loud, and vital for years while punk bands like The Ramones and The Clash injected new energy into a genre that will blast out as longs as head can bang.