Rockabilly, from the outside in. Each step is a genre and the single record this encyclopedia would put on first. Play them in this order and the last one should sound like a next step rather than a wall.
- 1 The way in
Rock 1954
The whole family: guitar, bass, drums and a beat borrowed from blues and rhythm and blues. Every branch below grows out of this trunk, metal included.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
The Beatles - Revolver, if you want to understand why everything branched so fast.
The Beatles, Revolver (1966) - 2 Then
Rock and roll 1954
Ground zero: twelve-bar blues sped up, piano hammered hard, lyrics about cars and girls. It made the electric guitar the defining instrument of the century.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode. That opening riff is the DNA of the entire tree.
Chuck Berry, Chuck (2017) - 3 What you asked about
Rockabilly 1954
Rock and roll filtered through white country music: slapped upright bass, Sun Studio echo and a vocal hiccup. It gets rediscovered every couple of decades.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Carl Perkins - Blue Suede Shoes, the original rather than the Elvis version.
Carl Perkins, Carl Perkins (1985) - 4 Where to go next
Ska punk 1988
Ska offbeats and a horn section at punk tempo. The third wave of ska, thoroughly American.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Operation Ivy - Energy. Twenty-seven minutes, one band, wildly outsized influence.
Operation Ivy, Energy (1989)
Assembled from the tree: every genre Rockabilly descends from, in order. Rockabilly has no subgenres, so the last step is the genre that rates closest to it by sound.