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Soft rock, also referred to as light rock or easy rock, is a style of music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
 which uses the techniques of rock and roll
Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a form of music that evolved in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its roots lay mainly in rhythm and blues, Country music, folk music, gospel music, and jazz....
 to compose a softer, more toned-down sound for listening, often at work or when driving. Soft rock is usually sung with higher-pitched vocals
Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the human voice, which is often contrasted with regular speech. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist....
, and the lyrics tend to be non-confrontational, focusing in very general language on themes like love, everyday life and relationships.






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Soft rock, also referred to as light rock or easy rock, is a style of music
Music

Music is an art form whose media is sound organized in time. Common elements of music are pitch , rhythm , dynamics , and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture ....
 which uses the techniques of rock and roll
Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a form of music that evolved in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its roots lay mainly in rhythm and blues, Country music, folk music, gospel music, and jazz....
 to compose a softer, more toned-down sound for listening, often at work or when driving. Soft rock is usually sung with higher-pitched vocals
Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the human voice, which is often contrasted with regular speech. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist....
, and the lyrics tend to be non-confrontational, focusing in very general language on themes like love, everyday life and relationships. The genre tends to make heavy use of piano
Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard instrument. Widely used in Western music for solo performance, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to musical composition and rehearsal....
s, synthesizer
Synthesizer

A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing a variety of sounds by generating and combining signals of different frequency....
s and sometimes saxophone
Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-Bore transposing instrument musical instrument considered a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and are played with a Single-reed instrument mouthpiece similar to the clarinet....
s. The electric guitar
Electric guitar

An electric guitar is a type of guitar that uses pickup to convert the vibration of its steel-cored strings into an electrical current, which is made louder with an instrument amplifier and a speaker....
s in soft rock are normally faint and high-pitched.

History

Soft rock emerged in the early 1970s, both as a reaction against the increasingly heavy music (punk rock
Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock....
 and heavy metal
Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in England and the United States. With roots in blues-rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified Distortion , extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall...
 etc.) that was developing at the time, and also as a reflection of the changing priorities of the Baby Boom
Post-World War II baby boom

As is often the case after a major war, the end of World War II brought a baby boom to many countries, notably those in Europe, Asia, North America, and Australasia....
. What set 1970s soft rock apart from its 1960s counterpart, which for lack of a better word is usually just called "pop", is that in the 1960s pop existed for those who simply didn't like rock; the 1960s' pop artists usually were vocalists who were stylistic throwbacks to the pre-rock era. Soft rock developed organically to suit the needs of those who did have rock listening experience; as such, it can be considered a bona fide
Bona Fide

Bona Fide is a studio album from rock band Wishbone Ash. It is the first studio album in six years and is the only studio album to feature guitarist Ben Granfelt....
 rock genre.

Soft rock became hugely popular later in that decade. By 1977, some radio stations, like New York's WTFM
WTFM

WTFM is a radio station broadcasting an Adult Contemporary music format. Licensed to Kingsport, Tennessee, USA, it serves the Tri-Cities TN / VA area....
 and WYNY, had switched to an all-soft-rock format. Around that same time, Chicago
Chicago (band)

Chicago is an American pop rock band formed in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. The band began as a politically charged, sometimes experimental, rock band and later moved to a predominantly softer sound, becoming famous for producing a number of hit ballads....
, which had previously been a jazz-rock
Jazz fusion

Fusion or, more specifically, jazz fusion or jazz rock, is a musical genre that merges jazz with elements of other styles of music, particularly funk, Rock and roll, R&B, electronic music, and world music, but also pop music, classical music, and folk music, or sometimes even Heavy metal music, reggae, ska, country music, hip hop...
 band, switched to soft rock and reached their biggest commercial successes. British/American blues band Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac are a United Kingdom/United States rock music band formed in 1967 which have experienced a high turnover of personnel and varied levels of success....
 achieved its greatest success after adopting parts of the genre. Even Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin were an English rock music band formed in 1968 by Jimmy Page , Robert Plant , John Paul Jones and John Bonham . With their heavy, guitar-driven sound, Led Zeppelin are regarded as one of the first heavy metal music bands....
, considered by some to be standard bearers of hard rock
Hard rock

Hard rock is a sub-genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock and psychedelic rock and is considerably harder than conventional rock music....
, flirted with the genre at the time in songs like 1979's "All My Love
All My Love (song)

"All My Love" is a song on England Rock music band Led Zeppelin's final studio album, In Through the Out Door, released in 1979. Written by Robert Plant and John Paul Jones , it is a slow-tempo song which was composed in the style of soft rock, featuring a synthesizer solo by Jones and sensitive lyrics by Plant....
". By the 1980s, tastes had changed and radio formats reflected this change; the genre evolved into what came to be known as "adult contemporary", a pop categorization that bore less overt rock influence than its forebearer.

Some soft rock artists are: Elton John
Elton John

Sir Elton Hercules John Order of the British Empire is an England singer-songwriter, composer and pianist.In his four-decade career, John has been one of the dominant forces in rock and popular music, especially during the 1970s....
, Billy Joel
Billy Joel

William Martin "Billy" Joel is an United States rock music musician, singer-songwriter, and Classical music composer. He released his first hit song, "Piano Man ", in 1973....
, & Air Supply
Air Supply

Air Supply are a soft rock duo who had a succession of hits worldwide through the late 1970s and early 1980s. It consists of British guitarist and Singing Graham Russell and Australian lead vocalist Russell Hitchcock ....
.

See also

  • List of Soft Rock Musicians
    List of soft rock musicians

    This is a list of notable soft rock musicians....
  • Adult contemporary music
    Adult contemporary music

    Adult contemporary music refers to a broad style of popular music that ranges from lush 1960s, vocal music-based music to predominantly ballad-heavy music with varying degrees of rock music influence"....
  • Arena rock
    Arena rock

    Arena rock, also called stadium rock or anthem rock, is a loosely-defined term describing an era of rock music. It was spawned from heavy metal music, hard rock, and progressive rock in the 1970s by bands such as Styx , Boston , Journey and Foreigner ....
  • Yacht Rock
    Yacht rock

    Yacht Rock was an online video series following the fictionalized lives and careers of American soft rock stars of the late 1970s and early 1980s....
  • Power ballad
    Power ballad

    A Power ballad is a type of song typically characterized by having a slow tempo, long voiced notes, Electric guitar and/or acoustic guitars, and deemphasized percussion and bass guitar....