Hard Rock incorporates a number of elements, other than
guitars. The definitive Hard Rock group is probably
Black Sabbath. They have the guitar element down with
Tony Iommi who played some of the
heaviest,
fastest and
'beautiful' riffs in
rock and roll history. Take the minute long improvised solo during
Iron Man between minutes 3 and 4 for a good example.
Ozzy Osbourne is truly the
epitome of a hard rock lead vocalist. He does not sing, he wails. If he's not wailing, he's screaming. Ozzy plays the crowd like only a few other
lead vocalists can do. Rouding out the line up is
Geezer Butler providing the heavy
bass lines and
Bill Ward supplying the necessary
beat.
But
Black Sabbath is not the only fine example of
Hard Rock.
Led Zeppelin is another very fine example. Once again
Robert Plant provides the truly incredible vocals (deciding who is better, him or Ozzy, usually depends on how much of the
whine factor you can take).
Jimmy Page is quite possibly the
greatest rhythm guitarist of all time (though my personal preference is
Pete Townshend). They probably had an even better
rhythm section than
Black Sabbath with the horribly underrated
John Paul Jones on
bass and
John Bonham on drums.
But this is not what makes a band
hard rock.
hard rock is truly a combination of the
Blues with
wailing vocals a very, very hard
rhythm section and finally the kind of lyrics you'll find in
Iron Man and
Stairway to Heaven (IE:
nonsensical).
So,
Korn and
White Zombie might qualify under the
hard rock category, but they by no means define the category. That was, fortunately, done long ago.
A short list of good
Hard Rock Bands:
Black Sabbath
Led Zeppelin
Iron Maiden
And not quite
Hard Rockish but very close:
The Who
Jethro Tull
Rush