{"id":691916,"date":"2026-06-08T16:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T16:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/691916\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T16:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T16:58:10","slug":"3-rock-songs-that-defied-the-sound-of-their-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/691916\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Rock Songs That Defied the Sound of Their Era"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we look back on an era of music, it\u2019s easy to put a blanket over it. The 80s were only upbeat, glittering pop anthems. The 70s were only hazy, rootsy rock. So forth and so on. But that obviously obscures some of the color these musical eras provided. The three rock<\/a> songs below defied the expectations of their era. Revisit them for a greater notion of what these decades sounded like.<\/p>\n

[RELATED: 3 Times British Rockers Found Their Sound in America]<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBlack Sabbath\u201d \u2014 Black Sabbath<\/p>\n

Black Sabbath are largely considered the forefathers of metal music. We might not have had the language yet, but their title track is metal all day. This track introduced the heaviness of that sub-genre long before anyone else thought it to be quite as dark.<\/p>\n

\u201cBig black shape with eyes of fire \/ Tellin\u2019 people their desire \/ Satan\u2019s sittin\u2019 there, he\u2019s smilin\u2019 \/ Watches those flames get higher and higher,\u201d the lyrics to this proto-metal track read. It\u2019s easy to see how subsequent bands followed Black Sabbath\u2019s lead. A few years later, and this song would be commonplace, but when it was released, it stood singular among the sounds of rock.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll Tomorrow\u2019s Parties\u201d \u2014\u00a0The Velvet Underground<\/p>\n

Late-60s rockers were mostly into upbeat psychedelia, but The Velvet Underground were doing what they did best: innovating. \u201cAll Tomorrow\u2019s Parties\u201d is a post-punk vignette about Andy Warhol\u2019s famous parties, released a decade before post-punk would come into the mainstream. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd what costume shall the poor girl wear \/ To all tomorrow\u2019s parties? \/ A hand-me-down dress from who knows where \/ To all tomorrow\u2019s parties,\u201d they sing in this avant-garde track. This song was nothing like anything else their fellow rockers were releasing at the time. The Velvet Underground basically saw into the future with \u201cAll Tomorrow\u2019s Parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Man Who Sold The World\u201d \u2014 David Bowie<\/p>\n

Long before fans had the language to be able to define \u201cglam rock,\u201d David Bowie was teasing the subgenre with \u201cThe Man Who Sold The World\u201d. Mixing psychedelia with theatricalism, Bowie helped lay the groundwork for glam, which would pop up at the end of the 70s.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re face to face \/ With the man who sold the world \/ Who knows? Not me \/ We never lost control,\u201d the lyrics read. Bowie says something weighty here with an added layer of surrealism. This song had elements of its era, but it blew past any conventions put on rockers at the time.<\/p>\n

(Photo by Larry Hulst\/Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When we look back on an era of music, it\u2019s easy to put a blanket over it. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216,2156],"class_list":["post-691916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-rock-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}