the.com/soft rock
Rock that filed off its edges so your parents could love it too.
means A smooth, mellow style of pop music built around gentle melodies, light rhythms, and romantic or easy-listening themes, rather than the distortion and aggression of harder rock.
from The genre name is simply descriptive, built by contrast: 'rock' from rock and roll, which itself likely borrowed the slang sense of 'rock' meaning to sway or dance, dating back to earlier blues and gospel usage. 'Soft' was tacked on by the music industry and radio programmers in the 1970s to label the smoother, radio-friendly end of the rock spectrum, as a counterpart to the newly named 'hard rock.' No hidden story here — just an industry sorting records into bins, and the softer bin needing a name.
- origin era
- peaked commercially mid-to-late 1970s
- key acts
- Fleetwood Mac, Journey ballads, Bread, Air Supply
- tempo trait
- rarely exceeds a brisk jog BPM
- dentist offices
- basically its spiritual home venue