Stoner rock
History[edit]
Influences (1960s to mid-1980s)[edit]
Like most subgenres of music, the origins of stoner rock are hard to trace and pinpoint. Nevertheless, several known progenitors and signature songs are widely credited with helping to shape the genre. Blue Cheer is considered one of the pioneers of the style; as AllMusic author Greg Prato puts it, "When talks about 'stoner rock' come up, one band that tends to get overlooked is Blue Cheer."[24] According to critic Mark Deming, Blue Cheer's first album, Vincebus Eruptum, "is a glorious celebration of rock & roll primitivism run through enough Marshall amps to deafen an army," not unlike the heaviness of MC5's Kick Out the Jams and the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat.[25]
Rolling Stone claims, "What stoner rock delivers, slowed down and magnified, is the riff, the persistent legacy of Mississippi blues. Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were the first to make a monolith of it."[26] Sir Lord Baltimore have been called "the godfathers of stoner rock" and Leaf Hound have been cited for influencing countless bands in the stoner rock movement, including Kyuss and Monster Magnet.[27] James Manning of Time Out London recognises The Beatles' I Want You (She's So Heavy) as "laying the foundations for stoner rock with the relentlessly spiralling outro".[28]
Buffalo's 1973 sophomore release Volcanic Rock has been "heralded as the first great stoner rock record,"[29] the song Sunrise (Come My Way) "has since been shamelessly cannibalized for its parts by more stoner-rock bands than you can shake a bong at,"[30] and the songs Till My Death and The Prophet have been likened to later stoner rock.[31] Primevil's album Smokin' Bats at Campton's has been called a "touchstone" of stoner rock.[32] Jim DeRogatis has said that stoner rock bands are "reaching back for inspiration to the psychedelic, proto-metallic jamming of bands like Cream, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Hawkwind."[33]
According to DeRogatis, the roots of stoner rock can be heard on Black Sabbath's Master of Reality, Hawkwind's 25 Years On 1973–1977 box set, the aforementioned Blue Cheer album, Deep Purple's Machine Head and Blue Öyster Cult's Workshop of the Telescopes.[33] Black Sabbath's Master of Reality is often cited as the first album of the genre,[34][35] and Martin Popoff states: "When 'Sweet Leaf' kicks in, one witnesses simultaneously the invention of stoner rock".[36] Allmusic summarizes this unique fusion as follows: "Stoner metal bands updated the long, mind-bending jams and ultra-heavy riffs of bands like Black Sabbath, Blue Cheer, Blue Öyster Cult, and Hawkwind by filtering their psychedelia-tinged metal and acid rock through the buzzing sound of early Sub Pop–style grunge."[11] However, Kyuss members Josh Homme and John Garcia have shrugged off the heavy metal influence, and instead cite punk rock and hardcore punk, particularly the sludgy hardcore of Black Flag's album My War as influences.[37]