What has led the segmentation of rock into subgenres since the 1960’s?

     During the 1950’s and 1960”s radio’s started to get affected by the record standards that had been set years before. For a while, the limits of the 45-rpm single had limited pop songs to be around 2-3 minutes long, which many radios also found to be very efficient, but by the mid 1960’s various groups found this form of audio to be very constraining. The Beatles and other music groups pushed toward producing longer songs that allowed much more complex ideas and better arrangements, therefore some songs would go up to 6 minutes. Many FM radios then moved towards a format of ‘album oriented rock’ that stressed longer songs. Artists like Pink Floyd, Funkadelic and Bob Dylan where few of the groups that helped expand rock’s horizons by introducing new ways of performing and also new sounds.

     By the 1970’s both radios and recording companies had begun exploring and diversifying rock formats. Rock’s diverse roots fed further diversification into a number of subgenres, which also led to the development of new radio formats. Amongst the different types of rock formats developed we can find: album oriented rock, rock oldies, top 40, heavy metal and adult contemporary. During the 1970’s rock also adopted punk and glam rock. Reggae and Ska (fusion of rock, R&B and soul with Jamaican styles) were also adopted later on. Between the 1980’s and 1990’s grunge rock, techno, alternative, rap and hip-hop were also added. By the 1990’s, dozens of subgenres had descended from the 1960’s rock, pop and soul roots.