2010s Hard Rock Essentials

The commercial resiliency of alt-metal and post-grunge really is astonishing. After all, many of the biggest hits of the 2010s came from veteran hard rockers (Disturbed, Three Days Grace, Breaking Benjamin) rooted in these ’90s subgenres. Exceptions emerged, of course. While Greta Van Fleet’s Led Zeppelin-inspired rave-ups and Ghost’s doom-metal nightmares may seem, at first blush, radically different from each other, the success of both reflected the growing number of young acts revisiting ’70s metal. Even Denmark’s Volbeat, around since the mid-2000s, finally broke in the United States thanks largely to their classic metal riffs. The mainstreaming of metalcore and hardcore also warrants mentioning: Bring Me the Horizon and A Day to Remember gradually attained stardom thanks to their knack for mixing furious breakdowns with sparkling pop productions. It represented a genuinely fresh twist and perhaps a sign of future developments for hard rock.