Heartland Rock

It was characterized by a straightforward musical style. That was a concern with the average American life, and a conviction. Rock music had that as a social or communal purpose beyond just entertainment.

In concert heartland rock often took the form of crowd-rousing anthems, leading to comparisons with arena rock.

Heartland rock faded away as a recognized genre by the early 1990s, as rock music in general lost influence with younger audiences and as heartland's artists turned to more personal works.

Many major heartland rock artists began their careers in the 1960s. Springsteen would be the first artist to bring heartland rock to US and international attention, and its most commercially successful exponent. After a series of critically highly regarded, but modestly selling albums with the E Street Band, he achieved his breakthrough in 1975 with Born to Run, which presented stories of loss, betrayal, defeat and escape in the context of his native New Jersey shoreline, with songs influenced by 50s rock and roll, Bob Dylan and Phil Spector's Wall of Sound. While Springsteen struggled for three years with legal disputes, other artists in a similar vein came to the fore. These included Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Eddie Money, and fellow Jersey Shore residents Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. In 1978, Springsteen returned with Darkness on the Edge of Town, which reached the top ten in the US and then the number one album The River (1980), which continued the themes of economic and personal dissolution, produced a series of hit singles.