 American working-class oriented heartland rock, characterized by a straightforward musical style, and a concern with the lives of ordinary, blue-collar American people, developed in the second half of the 1970s.The term heartland rock was first used to describe Midwestern arena rock groups like Kansas, REO Speedwagon and Styx, but which came to be associated with a more socially concerned form of roots rock more directly influenced by folk, country and rock and roll.It has been seen as an American Midwest and Rust Belt counterpart to West Coast country rock and the Southern rock of the American South.