What is Heartland rock?
'''Heartland rock''' is a genre of [[rock music]]. 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 [[Rock and roll anthem|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. ==History== 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]]'',<ref name=RuhlmannSpringsteenAM>{{Citation| last = W. Ruhlmann| title = Bruce Springsteen: Biography| journal = Allmusic| date = | url = http://www.allmusic.com/artist/bruce-springsteen-p5505/biography| archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20120105042045/http://www.allmusic.com/artist/bruce-springsteen-p5505/biography| archivedate = 5 January 2012| access-date = 25 November 2022| url-status = dead}}.</ref> 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]].<ref>{{Citation| last = J. Ankeny| title = Born to Run&nbsp;— Bruce Springsteen: song review| journal = Allmusic| date = | url = http://www.allmusic.com/song/born-to-run-t2010340| archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20120309180816/http://allmusic.com/song/born-to-run-t2010340| archivedate = 9 March 2012| access-date = 25 November 2022| url-status = dead}}.</ref> While Springsteen struggled for three years with legal disputes, other