Rock music in Denmark

Danish rock is rock music played in Denmark. Starting in the 1950s, rock music was imported from the United States of America, where it was becoming extremely popular. Danish jazz artists began adopting the rock genre. Towards the end of the 1950s and throughout the 1960s, Danish rock was heavily influenced by British music, one of the genres being R&B. By the end of the 1960s, Danish rock was again being influenced by American rock. During the 1980s, Danish rock consisted mainly of pop-rock bands. In the current Danish rock scene, Indie rock is very popular.

Denmark is a European country that began importing popular American rock and roll music in the 1950s, when that style was conquering audiences across the continent. Danish jazz and dance bands and soloists like Ib Jensen, Otto Brandenburg, Peter Plejl and Ib Glindemann brought the style to Danish listeners. At the end of the decade, the English band The Shadows was a major influence on the first pioneers of the era, The Cliffters and The Rocking Ghosts.

In the early 1960s, British R&B and beat bands inspired Danish counterparts like The Hitmakers, Sir Henry & His Butlers, The Defenders and The Beefeaters, as well as the breakthrough band Steppeulvene, whose 1967 LP Hip revolutionized the field of Danish rock by fusing American folk rock. Young Flowers was the first rock trio; some of their songs were in Danish language, but several others were adaptions of Walt Whitman lyrics. Jazz bands like Blue Sun, Burnin Red Ivanhoe, Secret Oyster and Maxwells also moved towards rock. At the close of the decade, much of the rock world was incorporating sociopolitical lyrics, along with the rise of the counterculture. Denmark's contribution to this field included Gasolin, Jomfru Ane Band and Røde Mor.
Among middle-aged and older Danes, schlager-resembling Danish folk rock was gaining popularity those days, chiefly artists like John Mogensen, Otto Brandenburg and Kim Larsen.

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