Timeline (Let there be Rock)

A timeline detailing the rise and fall of the different rock genres and sub-genres from 1986 to today.

1986
June - Kurt Cobain, a student from Aberdeen, Washington, gives his friend Krist Novoselic a demo tape from a previous band experiment "Fecal Matter", however, he puts it away for later listening. After months, both men fall apart, going their separate ways. without Novoselic ever listening to the tape.



1987
May 15 - Californian heavy metal band Mötley Crüe releases their fourth studio album, Girls, Girls, Girls. Opening to modest reviews, the album peaks at #2 on the Billboard charts.

July 21 - Appetite for Destruction, the début album for the Californian heavy metal band Guns N' Roses. Well received by critics, it remains the highest selling Guns N' Roses album to this day.

August 3 - English hair metal band Def Leppard releases their best selling and most popular album, Hysteria, which goes onto sell 12 million copies worldwide.

October - One of the best selling Thrash bands of the 1990's, Alice in Chains forms in the alternative rock dominated Seattle.

1988
March 23 - Krist Novoselic, future lead guitarist for the alternative rock band Reach, joins an early alternative rock act, Mudhoney, playing as a bassist.



August 17 - From their Appetite for Destruction album, Guns N' Roses releases Sweet Child o' Mine as a single. It would go onto top the Billboard charts for 2 weeks, and is widely considered to be the bands most well received, and beloved song.

October - American hair metal band, Poison releases their chart topping single, Every Rose Has Its Thorn. The song (coming from their chart topping album Open Up and Say... Ahh!) whilst a move away from the traditional, more heavy elements of the sub-genre, is considered today one of the last hurrahs for hair metal.

October 31 - American alternative (later Thrash) band Soundgarden releases their first studio album entitled Ultramega OK. Containing elements of many rock genres, including, psychedelic, punk and heavy metal, the song would become a precursor for future work, most notably industrial metal.

1989
After signing with A&M Records, Soundgarden alienates many of their original fans by moving in a more "mainstream" direction. This become evident after they opened for the heavy metal band Guns N' Roses, something that would influence their later work.

January 24  - Skid Row releases their eponymous début album Skid Row to critical applause. Becoming their most successful album, it sold 6 million copies in the US, and catapulted them into the national view.

January 31 - The hair metal band, Warrant releases their first album, ''Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich. The album, which peaks at #10 on the Billboard charts, puts Warrant in the spotlight, and produces a string of hit single such as Heaven, Down Boys and Sometimes She Cries.''

September 1 - Mötley Crüe releases their most successful album to date, ''Dr Feelgood. After topping the Billboard charts, it sold 6 million copies, making it one of the most popular Mötley Crüe albums in history, and produced some of their most well known songs, these being Dr. Feelgood and Kickstart my Heart''.

1990
September 11 - Warrant releases their second, and most well known single, Cherry Pie. Becoming a #7 hit on the Billboard Charts, it spawns their best known song, Cherry Pie. The song becomes a top 10 hit, and expands the power base of hair metal. However, music historians have attributed the success of Cherry Pie to the death of hair metal as a sub-genre. The rock industry was beginning to be oversaturate with hair metal bands and their imitators, and by the beginning of 1991, many people turned to the more serious, "heavy" sound of either thrash metal, or alternative rock.

October 19 - After the punk rock band Scream disbands, two of their members, Dave Grohl and Skeeter Thompson, enter into discussions with Kurt Cobain into forming a new band. Scream and Cobain got into contact through "the Melvins" singer Buzz Osbourne, and after the disbanding of the band, Osbourne gave the contact details of Cobain to the two men. On October 19, the three men formed the heavy (later thrash) metal band, "The Called".

1991
April 5 - Soundgarden releases their third album, Motormouth, which enters into the Billboard charts at #17. The album, which produced their #3 song Outward Where, which was well received, and a stylistic move towards the growing thrash metal movement which was about to sweep across the nation.

August 12 - Thrash band Metallica releases their popular fifth album, eponymous titled Metallica. The album, eventually reaching #1 on the Billboard charts, was considered a positive move for the band, and kick-started the Thrash movement throughout America.

August 27 - Pearl Jam, a alternative rock band from Seattle, releases their début album ''Ten. ''Released to modest reviews, finalised with a #187 spot on the Billboard 200, it became extremely popular in the bands home state, and helped spur the alternative rock scene into action, which would result in the genres popular appeal in the 2000's.

November 18 - Considered the album that made Thrash truly popular, especially among American teens, The Called releases Witness. As their début album, they did not consider the album would become as popular as it did. Songs like Time (the winner of the Best Metal Performance in the 1992 Grammy Awards) and From the Middle would later be released as singles, and playback on MTV would cause mania across the country.

1992
11 May - The British heavy metal band Iron Maiden releases their ninth studio album, Fear of the Dark. The songs on the track are more heavier than their previous albums, mostly to cash in on the booming Thrash movement in America, and the ploy worked, as Fear of the Dark sells more albums than any other Iron Maiden song previously.

July 14 - Thrash would continue to solidify itself as the dominant genre of rock, with the release of Megadeths fifth studio album, ''Countdown to Extinction. Considered to be one of the big four originators in the genre (alongside Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax), the album was widely received as one of their best, and produced a series of hit singles, such as Symphony for Destruction and Sweating Bullets''. The album would go onto win the 1993 Best Metal Performance in the Grammy's.

September 29 - Thought of as a successful blend of both alternative rock, and Thrash, Alice in Chains releases their second album, ''Dirt. Praised for it's serious subject matters in songs such as Would?, Them Bones and Rooster'', the album would peak at #2 on the Billboard top 200.

1993
March 22 - British alternative rock breaks into America with Depeche Mode's eight studio album, Songs of Faith and Devotion. The album, which had a more heavy tone to it than other Depeche Mode releases, was met with critical acclaim, especially along the alternative rock dominated east coast. It did so well in fact that for one week in 1994, the album topped the Billboard charts.

June 7 - A historic moment in the history of rock, as the Rock and Roll hall of fame is completed, and a grandiose ceremony takes place as stars like Chuck Berry and Billy Joel show up to it. The museum would not be opened to the public however, till 1995.



October 10 - The Called releases their second album The Crowd to both critical and popular acclaim. For their second album, the band meshed many aspects of alternative rock with the fast paced nature of Thrash, which was well liked by much of the general populace. To promote the new release, the band goes on their first world tour, and not only becomes more popular, but makes Thrash more popular by proxy. By the end of the year, The Crowd would become a #1 hit, and one of the albums singles, We Are Everyone Now, goes onto be nominated for the Song of the Year in the 1994 Grammy Awards, and win the Best Metal Performance that same year.

October 19 - Vs., the second studio album by Pearl Jam is released. Considered to be released at the hight of alternative rocks deviation from the mainstream Thrash metal, a number of songs in ''Vs. ''are considered to be wildly different in tone, speed and substance. Between the fact that Thrash was sky-rocketing to success and alternative rock was slowly redefining itself, the album still did good in terms of sales, going platinum by 1997.