Definition of hard rock
: rock music marked by a heavy regular beat, high amplification, and usually frenzied performances
Examples of hard rock in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web In the early-to-mid Seventies, heavy metal and hard rock were defined by the brooding dirges of Black Sabbath, the mysticism of Led Zeppelin, and the hard-driving hyper-masculinity of Deep Purple and Judas Priest.
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James Freeman, WSJ, "Mr. Saturday Night," 8 Oct. 2020 Black Sabbath had set new standards for harder, faster and uh, limber-er in American hard rock.
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Andrew Unterberger, Billboard, "Forever No. 1: Van Halen's 'Jump'," 7 Oct. 2020 Leading the way on both counts was lead singer, David Lee Roth, the clown prince of hard rock.
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The Enquirer, "From the archives: Van Halen rocked Cincinnati Gardens," 7 Oct. 2020 Eddie Van Halen was a guitar virtuoso whose blinding speed, control and innovation propelled his band Van Halen into one of hard rock’s biggest acts.
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Taylor Kate Brown, SFChronicle.com, "Bay Briefing: Who’s left and who’s leaving?," 7 Oct. 2020 Van Halen’s oversized influence on popular music stretched well beyond hard rock.
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Will Collier, National Review, "The Virtuosity and Creativity of Van Halen," 7 Oct. 2020 Eddie Van Halen, a guitar virtuoso whose pyrotechnic riffs and solos expanded the vocabulary of hard rock, inspired legions of headbanging imitators and propelled his band Van Halen to four turbulent decades of stadium-rock stardom, died Oct. 6.
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Washington Post, "Eddie Van Halen, guitar virtuoso with a shimmering sound, dies at 65," 6 Oct. 2020 There is not a single large-scale hard rock mine that has ever operated without causing some level of contamination to nearby surface or ground waters.
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Anchorage Daily News, "Candidate Q&A: Alaska Senate District N — Carl Johnson," 3 Oct. 2020 Jimi had long since broken out of what were thought of as the traditional Black genres of the blues, R&B and soul and had not only mastered but reinvented the hard rock that was thought to be the province of white musicians and artists.
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David Kirby, WSJ, "‘Wild Thing’ Review: Out of This World," 2 Oct. 2020
See MoreThese example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'hard rock.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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Time Traveler for hard rock
The first known use of hard rock was in 1959
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