Hard Rock (still) Calling

This week sees the release of a new album by Iron Maiden, The Final Frontier. It is the band’s 15th studio album in a career that has now lasted – since its earliest incarnation – an incredible 35 years. Although existing outside what many would define as ‘the mainstream’ they have sold an estimated 75 million albums and are one of the biggest touring bands in the world – the fanaticism with which they are received in some of the farthest-flung corners of the globe (as captured in their highly entertaining Flight 666 documentary) has to be seen to be believed.

In many ways Iron Maiden embody a paradox at the heart of what might (very) broadly be termed Hard Rock. While for decades it was seen as the preserve of a denim and leather-clad minority, typified by singles that whizzed into the Top 40 and disappeared again just as quickly, recent numbers rather debunk that myth. While Contemporary Rock acts (such as Kings Of Leon) will always garner the biggest headlines, the Metal and AOR sub-genres together claimed almost 12% of the albums market in 2009 – equivalent to well over 15 million sales. And while not every act defined as the latter has ever winced with recognition while watching This Is Spinal Tap, bands such as Bon Jovi and Journey certainly knew the wrong way around the underbelly of an enormodome.

It was also interesting to see that, in the latest ABC figures, Kerrang! was the only paid-for music title to record an increase in circulation, particularly in view of the number of recent ‘Is Guitar Music Dead?’ articles elsewhere in the media. While many genres fluctuate greatly in popularity, Hard Rock seems sometimes able to make a virtue of its relative insularity, with artists such as Bullet For My Valentine scoring two successive Top Five albums with nary a milkman-friendly refrain in sight.

Both Metal and AOR appear to have benefitted from the passing of time. While the years have been cruel to some other genres, music that was often viewed in its heyday with - at best - an uncomprehending scratch of the head is now treated with a good deal of retrospective affection. AOR in particular seems to have acquired genuine mass-market appeal: the biggest selling compilation of 2010 outside of the Now series – American Anthems – houses a host of rehabilitated classics by acts (such as REO Speedwagon, Boston and Toto) that have all at one time or another had their upturned collars felt by the long arm of the fashion police.

So where is Hard Rock headed? To nab a cliché, it’s always changing yet always somehow the same – a formula that seems to have served it very well up to now.