MUSIC FINAL

Moody Blues

"Nights in White Satin". Proto-prog rock. Pursued a rock/classical fusion.

James Brown

"Soul Brother Number One" and the "Godfather of Soul"

Procol Harum

"Whiter Shade of Pale". Inspiration from J.S. Back "Air on a G String". Prog-rock a decade before popularity.

Disco

"offspring" of funk. popular in 70's. music with a strong danceable beat, but it also required many of the same attributes we found in funk. songs featured few harmonic changes and open-ended forms, they were built up from small cells of melody and rhythm, and they emphasized rhythm above all else.

soundprint

"space" or "texture" evoked by a recording. often producer or engineers contribution to song. (hiss, crackle)

timbre

"tone color" of a song, they way a song feels to us

Velvet Underground

'Only 3000 people bought their records while they were together, but all those people started a band.' Formed in 1964 in NYC by poetry student Lou Reed and avant-garde musician John Cale, the band went on to craft some of the grittiest and most exciting rock of its time - and some of the most forward looking.

New Wave

A broadly-defined music industry term for a brighter, more polished, non-threatening, pop-oriented outgrowth of punk. Shared some of post-punk's sensibilities about the subculture's relationship with the mainstream, but generally adopted a less-subversive approach. The Talking Heads, The Police, Elvis Costello.

Linda Ronstadt

A pop music sensation in the 1960s with her folk-pop band the Stone Poneys, she went on to mainstream country rock success in the early- and mid-1970s. Despite her Arizona and Los Angeles roots, she cultivated a cute, faux-innocent southern girl image and a wide variety of performance styles suited to shifting market demands.

Anthology of American Folk Music

Album compilation by Harry Smith that spurred the resurgence on an interest in folk music.

Beat Culture

Arose from bob and cool jazz. "Either you get it or you don't".

Power Trio

Bass, drums, lead guitar. Heavy metal.

Brian Wilson

Beach Boys front man.

Alan Freed

Became a DJ for a popular R&B show on WJW in Cleveland in 1951. The show, called the "Moondog Rock 'n' Roll House Party," proved to be a ratings smash for both black and white audiences, and his success in Cleveland earned him national attention as well as local fame. Among Freed's most important accomplishments was coining the term rock 'n' roll to describe the genre of music that he was playing on the air.

Sun Records

Began as an R&B label, but soon began to explore the possibilities offered by a growing teenage market, a market that was much less divided by race lines. Released Elvis' first 5 singles.

The Rolling Stones

British invasion group. Opposite of the Beatles. Roots in blues and Rock and roll. Authentic rockers. tough image.

Mods

British youth subculture. Favored high fashion, scooters, amphetamines. Pete Townsend, The Kinks.

Rockers

British youth subculture. James Dean inspired, leather jackets, greased hair, motorcycles, alcohol. The Beatles.

Buddy Holly

Came out of a country and western background and had believed that he would make his career playing western-inspired tunes. But when he heard Elvis in 1955, he changed his musical direction and embraced a more R&B-inspired sound in the Sun vein. He's one of the original 'rock and roll nerds'. Famous for double tracking. Died in a plane crash.

Fabian/Frankie Avalon

Careers launched by Dick Clark's American Bandstand

Michael Jackson

Child motown phenomenon, became one of the most famous performers of all time. "King of Pop"

Bruce Springsteen

Described as the "second Dylan". His sound was deeply influenced by the rock of the 1950s, while his lyrical themes embraced the social conscience of 1960s folk rock. As such, he became a mainstay of working class, blue-collar rock 'n roll, and his music tends to celebrates the joys and hardships of everyday working life rather than romanticizing them.

Donna Summer

Disco diva

Girl Groups

Doo-wop influenced vocal groups who merged the sounds of R&B-influenced music with Tin Pan Alley. Lyrics focused on teenage problems.

W.C. Handy

Early promoter of blues. "The Father of Blues"

Giorgio Moroder

European music producer who studied American dance music trends and used the increasingly affordable synthesizers and sequencers to create smooth dance music with cool, glossy grooves.

Quincy Jones

Famous music producer, produced "Beat It" by Michael Jackson.

Jerry Lee Lewis

Had his roots in gospel and country music. immediately famous for his reckless piano style, which involved pounding on the keys with fists and legs, standing on the piano bench, and (on at least one occasion) setting it on fire. Made a fatal career move. He married his 13-year-old second cousin.

hardcore

Harder, louder, faster, and harsher than punk, it turned away from punk's pop tendencies and focused its energy on social critique. Unlike punk, it would never make a self-conscious grab for mainstream attention, but would instead focus on the creation of a continuous 'underground scene,' an alternative site for producing music independent of mainstream pressures.

The Carter Family

Hillbilly group from Virginia.

Dick Clark

Hosted American Bandstand. The conservative version of Allan Freed.

Led Zeppelin

Important band in the heavy metal movement. Heavy blues-based rock. Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Bonham, John Paul Jones.

Proto-punk

In each of these cases, the bands exerted far more artistic influence than commercial influence, and their willful refusal of commercial appeal made them political as well as sonic reference points for punk rock proper. Collectively, these bands are described by the after-the-fact label

U2

Like many bands of the time, the group worked the punk circuit briefly before adopting a more expansive, new-wave-inspired sound. Hailed from Dublin, famous for religious and social messages.

MTV

MTV was inundated by free content from labels trafficking in new wave and post-punk music, much of which featured synthesizers, drum machines, and electronics. Constantly looking for the "next big thing". Created extremely successful careers for many artists.

Malcom McClaren

Manager for the Sex Pistols who discovered Johnny Rotten.

Motown

Mass market of black pop in the 1960's that started after Berry Gordy created his own record label. Music inspired by Civil Rights movement.

Phil Spector

Most important producer of the girl group era. Founded Philles Records. A very savvy businessman who guided the careers of many aspiring girl groups. Famous for the "wall of sound".

Counterculture

Movement that frames itself in direct opposition to the values and practices of a mainstream.

Tin Pan Alley

Music style popular in 1920's and 30's. Jazzy style, verse-refrain form, AABA (American popular song form)

Prince

Musically omnivorous and identity-ambiguous. has made a brand of mutant pop that incorporates influence from sources as diverse as James Brown and Joni Mitchell and features reference points from funk to guitar rock to urban folk to new wave to psychedelic. The incredible diversity of his work is made all the more impressive by his 'one-man band' production style.

Synth-pop

Part of the spread of this genre can be attributed to the music video media, which transmitted the distinctive fashion sense (asymmetrical haircuts, neon, spandex, etc.) that accompanied the genre as well as the sound. Bands like Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Thomson Twins, A Flock of Seagulls, Soft Cell, and the Eurhythmics soon dominated the US charts and ushered in a new era of pop decadence after the ascetic days of punk rock.

Dark Side of the Moon

Pink Floyd's definitive post-Barrett record remained on the top of the US charts for nearly fifteen years. concept album - an album organized around a central concept or theme.

AC/DC

Progressive Rock Group. Straight-ahead, hard-charging rock and roll. They're heavy, bluesy, and willfully stupid, and the group would be best known for Angus Young's duck-walking antics and for their hilariously cynical and raunchy single-entendre lyrics.

Patti Smith

Punk rock poet-turned-musician who moved to New York in the 1970s and began reading poetry with electric guitar backing by Lenny Kaye.

Grace Slick

Singer for Jefferson Airplane. Piercing bluesy wail.

Bob Dylan

Singer/songwriter poet in folk music.

CBGB-OMFUG

Small bar in NY which was the birthplace a center of punk rockabilly

cover versions

Song re-recorded by a popular artist to embody a new feel for a particular song.

rockabilly

Style of R n R which highlights loud instruments, stripped down style, edgy and wild style, strong rhythm, and a fusion of southern styles.

country and western

Style of music that emerged from hillbilly and the music becomes increasingly nuanced, complex, and professional in its performance, while the rural image and attitude undergoes an intensification and modification.

rhythm and blues

Style of post-war music by black artists geared toward black audiences. Didn't indicate a musical style as much as a marketing approach - it spoke more about who bought and sold records than it about how they were made.

Surf Music

Teen inspired music set in California to give a summer feel to it's listeners.

George Martin

The Beatles producer aka "The fifth Beatle". Encouraged them to become more experimental.

Gram Parsons

The father of the country rock movement who spent a period of time in The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers during the late 1960s. Funny cremation story.

Kiss

The group rose to fame on a wave of catchy tunes and savvy marketing based around the band's arch-glam stage presence. appeared in full character make-up as a quartet of demon-clown-something-or-others

The Police

Their later work would tend toward new wave smoothness and pop sensibilities. Like The Clash, they absorbed reggae sounds, though their take on Jamaican sounds had less to do with roots-reggae traditionalism than Joe Strummer's band.

The Ramones

Their take on rock was 'stripped right down to the bone.' Songs featured three or four chords, chugging and rudimentary drumming, and deliberately anti-intellectual lyrics that served up mountains of teenage rock kitsch.

Joy Division

Though they began life as a straight-up punk group called Warsaw, the band took up a melancholic, dance-influenced sound with the addition of vocalist Ian Curtis, whose somber tenor would become of the most iconic voices of its time.

Bubblegum pop

Touted its worthlessness, its lack of serious value, and its absolute saccharine artificiality. A band like The Monkees, who existed purely as a record company construction, were every bit as cynical and calculating as the most antagonistic punk band. They knew that their songs (and the vast, vast majority of popular music) were short, stupid, and addictive.

Haight-Ashbury District

Where the beat culture joined the hippie culture and in San Francisco. Many psychedelic rock artists emerged from this place.

Little Richard

Wild and flamboyant performance style. Taking his cues from gospel, jump blues, and urban blues, he invented a wild-man persona that equaled or exceeded that of Jerry Lee Lewis. Hyperactive and sexually omnivorous, he was a whirlwind in make-up and a pompadour, one of rock's first figures to explore such an ambiguous sexual identity onstage.

Allman Brothers

a Georgia-based sextet formed in 1969. group that would define the Southern rock sound

Richard Hell and the Voidoids

accomplished poet, and the relative sophistication of his lyrics (which still extolled the punk themes of anarchy, lowdown living, and nihilism). approach to rock splintered the sounds of 1960s garage rock

rhythm

any placement of sounds in time.

NWBHM

arose in UK in late 1970s and constituted a revival of early-metal values: heavy guitars, operatic vocals, dark subject matter. True to their name, however, these bands incorporated some new ideas gleaned from punk rock and even from mid-70s pop-metal precursors.

Pop-metal

bands like Van Halen, Def Leppard, and hundreds of so-called 'hair metal' bands lightened up the sound of metal and reduced the severity of its themes. In place of the mystical worlds and insistent negativity, these bands presented an image of hard-partying, decadent fun that fit well with the superstar culture of the 1980s.

Larry Graham

bassist for sly & the family stone. famous slap-bass technique.

George Clinton

begins in 1955 with the formation of doo-wop group The Parliaments. full-on association with glam. "Dr. Funkenstein"

blue notes

bending of pitches between notes

Glam

branch of rock defined less by musical features and more by the means of image production. helped to reveal that any number of categories conceived as 'natural truths' - gender, class, race

Eric Clapton

doubted the abilities of 'nice college kids' like bassist Paul Samwell-Smith to play 'the real blues,' so he went off to start a more directly blues-based project of his own. Played guitar for the yardbirds.

Thrash metal

embraced the darkest aspects of metal imagery - death, destruction, apocalypse, the occult. The music reflected the anger of its lyrics, embracing fast tempos, palm-muted 'chugging' guitar sounds, and the rapid thump of double bass pedal drum work. Metallica

Black Flag

first and one of the most influential bands on the hardcore scene. While its sound was initially a bare-bones take on hardcore, they would go on to explore jazz and noise music ideas within a punk context during their extended 'psychodamage' jams.

The Clash

for instance, emphasized a more idealistic, positive political platform even as they embraced the stripped-down punk sound.

country blues

form of blues. male solo songwriters.

Funk

full of dance-oriented rhythms, catchy melodies, call-and-response choruses, and dense rhythmic patterning. The bands consist of a locked-in rhythm section of guitar, keyboards, bass, and drums underneath a horn section, and they tend to play music full of short and crisp notes above fat basslines

meter

grouping of strong and weak beats into repeating cells.

Syd Barrett

guitarist and vocalist for Pink Floyd. Psychotic, questionable mental health.

Sly & the Family Stone

helped to bring the funk sound to the mainstream, matching James Brown funk with psychedelic guitar work and a super-inclusive hippie vibe.

Payola

illegally playing a song on the radio because the station or DJ was being payed to play the certain song.

New York Dolls

important precedent for both punk and metal. Formed in 1971, the band made a name for itself with a slightly sloppy, kitschy, fast and abrasive take on rock - and with their onstage cross-dressing. the band dissolved in 1974, but their particular take on both rock and image-making would be profoundly influential on McLaren's next project - the Sex Pistols.

melody

linear succession of sounds in time. horizontal aspect of music.

Country Rock

merged aspects of the country sound (steel guitar, close vocal harmonies, twangy vocals) with the amplification and aggressive attitude of rock

Arena Rock

music geared toward performance before a very large audience

David Bowie

one of the iconic figures of the glam scene - a shape-shifting, stylistically omnivorous self-inventor. He's a pioneer of the glam scene in both England and the US. Space Oddity, Ziggy Stardust.

Androgyny

one of the most useful tools for deconstructing conventional identities. to either have no definitive gender characteristics or to have characteristics of both genders.

Grunge

originated in the Pacific Northwest during the mid-1980s, amidst a tangle of bands centered in Seattle and nearby cities like Olympia and Aberdeen. they drew from the common well of the US underground scene - including both metal and indie rock styles. Distaste for mainstream.

Black Sabbath

quintessential early metal act and a reference point for countless metal bands to come. Self-described proponents of 'doom music,' they crafted a sound that was the antithesis of all things peace and love.

race records

records made by black artists intended for black audiences.

harmony

simultaneous appearance of two or more sounds, the vertical dimension of music. experienced as chords in rock music.

call-and-response

singing of a phrase followed by instrumental commentary

Progressive Rock

style of rock that became a true art in its own right. Extreme complexity and instrumental virtuosity

Heavy Metal

style of rock that emerged after the psychedelic era. Name came from a comparison to lead and mercury as it applied to drugs. Bands typically composed of bass, drums, guitar, vocals. Death, apocalyptic visions, the occult, sex, drugs, anger, aggression.

post-punk

tended towards artier, darker, more introverted, detached, gloomy, experimental styles. tended toward more ambiguous political stances than punk or hardcore.

Elton John

the most prominent pop figure out of the glam scene. piano-driven pop-rock sound that embraced the nostalgic sounds of 50s and 60s teen-pop and coupled them with the unsubtle 'bigness' of glam rock.

Southern Rock

we're generally speaking about hard rock with a blues foundation and an explicitly 'Southern' image. It's possible to see both aspects as representing elements of the 'psychedelic backlash,' as the traditionalist values of blues-based rock form a tight fit with the traditionalist values of the south

Madonna

would rise to fame as one of the most important pop stars of the MTV era. Much of her fame can be attributed to her mastery of the music video medium and its unique ability to project carefully constructed and often-contradictory images and identities.