music

Opera music

2011-07-09T04:40:00.000-07:00

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text (called a libretto) and musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theater, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble.Opera is used in dramas we can say drama with music are the opera's.In this kinda dramas a very high pitch music is sang,The opera singers are supposed to break glasses with singing in appropriate notes.its a different kind of music which offers high pitch of sound or voices.opera represent the sensual and romantic representation of drama it adds emotions in a drama.I've seen once in a TV show showing opera the singers were singing with high pitch vocals and the characters were acting accordingly.

2011-07-04T21:04:00.000-07:00

Country music (or country and western) is a blend of traditional and popular US musical forms traditionally found in the Southern United States and the Canadian Maritimes that evolved rapidly beginning in the 1920s.^[1] Distinctive variations of the genre have also emerged elsewhere including Australian country music.
The term country music gained popularity in the 1940s when the earlier term hillbilly music came to be seen as denigrating. Country music was widely embraced in the 1970s, while Country and Western has declined in use since that time, except in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where it is still commonly used.^[1] However, in the Southwestern United States a different mix of ethnic groups created the music that became the Western music of the term Country and Western. The term country music is used today to describe many styles and subgenres.
Country music has produced the two top selling solo artists of all time in the United States. Elvis Presley, who was known early on as “the Hillbilly Cat” and was a regular on the radio program Louisiana Hayride,^[2] went on to become a defining figure in the emergence of rock and roll. With 129.5 million albums sold, Presley is the top-domestic-selling solo artist in U.S. history. Contemporary musician Garth Brooks, with 128 million albums sold, is the second best-selling solo artist in U.S. history.^[3]
While album sales of most musical genres have declined since about 2005, country music experienced one of its best years in 2006, when, during the first six months, U.S. sales of country albums increased by 17.7 percent to 36 million. Moreover, country music listening nationwide has remained steady for almost a decade, reaching 77.3 million adults every week, according to the radio-ratings agency Arbitron, Inc.

folk music

2011-07-03T19:42:00.001-07:00

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. It has become increasingly common to refer to this type of music as traditional music.
Starting in the middle of the 20th century a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional music. This process and period is called the folk revival and reached a peak in the 1960s. The most common name for this new form of music is also "folk music", but is often called "folk revival music" or "contemporary folk music" to make the distinction.^[1] This type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock, electric folk, folk metal, progressive folk, psychedelic folk, freak folk and neofolk. While contemporary folk music is a genre generally distinct from traditional music, it often shares the same English name, performers and venues as traditional music; even individual songs may be a blend of the two.
folk music is one of the genre which was introduced long ago by our fore fathers and even earlier.It was introduced long ago.Folk music mostly is sang in feasts and festivals,its has become a part of cultural.This type of songs or music refers to one's feelings.In context of Nepal it is still in practice or we can say Nepalese are preserving this culture,this is a part of Nepalese culture for instance singing folk songs or plating folk music at the time of sowing crops,marriage,and other feasts it is one of the important part of feasts.
I've also seen these kind of feats where these folk songs are sang and played i first say it while i went into a marriage there the mother of bride was singing songs which is called rateuli,the sing and dance.

progressive rock music

2011-07-02T22:32:00.000-07:00

Progressive rock (also referred to as prog rock or prog) is a subgenre of rock music^[1] that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility."^[2] John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of the 1960s as much as take its rightful place beside the modern classical music of Stravinsky and Bartók."^[3] Progressive rock bands pushed "rock's technical and compositional boundaries" by going beyond the standard rock or popular verse-chorus-based song structures. The Oxford Companion to Music states that progressive rock bands "...explored extended musical structures which involved intricate instrumental patterns and textures and often esoteric subject matter."^[4] Additionally, the arrangements often incorporated elements drawn from classical, jazz, and world music. Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy. Progressive rock bands sometimes used "concept albums that made unified statements, usually telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme."^[2] Progressive rock developed from late 1960s psychedelic rock, as part of a wide-ranging tendency in rock music of this era to draw inspiration from ever more diverse influences. The term was initially applied to the music of bands such as Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull and Emerson, Lake & Palmer,^[2] reaching its peak of popularity in the mid 1970s.

Alternarive rock

2011-07-01T19:17:00.000-07:00

Alternative rock (also called alternative music, alt rock or simply alternative) is a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became wildly popular in the 1990s. Alternative rock consists of various subgenres that have emerged from the independent music scene since the 1980s, such as grunge, Britpop, gothic rock, indie pop, and indie rock. These genres are unified by their collective debt to the style and/or ethos of punk rock, which laid the groundwork for alternative music in the 1970s.^[1] At times, alternative rock has been used as a catch-all phrase for rock music from underground artists and all music descended from punk rock (including punk itself, New Wave, and post-punk).
Some examples of alternative rock bands that have achieved commercial success and mainstream critical recognition are R.E.M., The Cure, Jane's Addiction, Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Weezer,^[2] Radiohead, The White Stripes, and Muse.^[3] However, many alternative rock artists are cult acts that have recorded with independent labels and have received the majority of their exposure through college radio airplay and word-of-mouth.

clasical music

2011-06-29T03:24:00.000-07:00

This article is about Western art music from 1000 AD to the present. For Western art music from 1750 to 1820, see Classical period (music). For other classical music traditions, see List of classical and art music traditions.

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times.^[1] The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common practice period.
European music is largely distinguished from many other non-European and popular musical forms by its system of staff notation, in use since about the 16th century.^[2] Western staff notation is used by composers to prescribe to the performer the pitch, speed, meter, individual rhythms and exact execution of a piece of music. This leaves less room for practices such as improvisation and ad libitum ornamentation, that are frequently heard in non-European art music (as in Indian classical music and Japanese traditional music) and popular music.^[3]^[4]^[5]
The term "classical music" did not appear until the early 19th century, in an attempt to "canonize" the period from Johann Sebastian Bach to Beethoven as a golden age.^[6] The earliest reference to "classical music" recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836.
Given the extremely broad variety of forms, styles, genres, and historical periods generally perceived as being described by the term "classical music," it is difficult to list characteristics that can be attributed to all works of that type. Vague descriptions are plentiful, such as describing classical music as anything that "lasts a long time," a statement made rather moot when one considers contemporary composers who are described as classical; or music that has certain instruments like violins, which are also found in other genres. However, there are characteristics that classical music contains that few or no other genres of music contain.
As regards Indian classical music in general, there are a huge number of modes (ragas). Musicians will elaborate a single mode in detail, largely through improvisation but also based on compositions and formal demands. There are also pieces (called "ragamala" or "ragamalika") in which modulations are employed. Individual pieces are shorter in Carnatic music, so recitals are constructed by selecting items in contrasting ragas. The rationale is specifically contrast (usually), as opposed to Turkish music where modes are chosen for a directed development, or Arabic music where the frequent modulations should be as unnoticed as possible, etc. A general aesthetic discussion of this type could become much more extensive.
In both Hindustani & Carnatic music, songs (or instrumental compositions in Hindustani music) are usually (although not always) preceded by an improvised unmeasured prelude (alap/alaapana) which is sometimes extensive. This is followed by the "composition section" in which a specific rhythmic cycle (tala) is used (ordinarily with percussion accompaniment). Although it is usually based upon a pre-existing composition, there are specific improvisational features to this section as well. This aspect earns Indian classical music comparisons with Western Jazz, with which it shares some demands.
Hindustani music is the music of North India, involving both Hindu and Muslim musicians. In this case (as opposed to every other world classical tradition, except European), there are a large number of high quality recordings. Different people will, no doubt, like different styles to varying degrees. In this case, I am only going to list some discs I particularly enjoy without any intention of coming close to encyclopedic coverage.
Dhrupad is the older style of Hindustani music, now rare. The style with which most readers will be more familiar is the more modern style, especially as represented in the Hindustani instrumental (sitar, etc.) list above.
Carnatic music is the music of South India, different in many of its terms and formal demands, although similar in overall outline. The two share some common origins, but the details of these relationships can be contentious.
Indian classical music continues to gain tremendously in popularity in the West, and is now taught widely. In addition to many opportunities to learn it at universities or in specialized instruction, more general resources are appearing. The recently released "Raga Guide" on Nimbus Records is a landmark and well worth pursuing for someone interested in learning the rudiments of ragas:

reggae

2011-06-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.
Reggae is based on a rhythmic style characterized by accents on the off-beat, known as the skank. Reggae is normally slower than both ska and rocksteady.^[1] Reggae usually accents the second and fourth beat in each bar, with the rhythm guitar also either emphasizing the third beat or holding the chord on the second beat until the fourth is played. It is mainly this "third beat", its speed and the use of complex bass lines that differentiated reggae from rocksteady, although later styles incorporated these innovations separately.

Etymology

The 1967 edition of the Dictionary of Jamaican English lists reggae as "a recently estab. sp. for rege", as in rege-rege, a word that can mean either "rags, ragged clothing" or "a quarrel, a row".^[2] Reggae as a musical term first appeared in print with the 1968 rocksteady hit "Do the Reggay" by The Maytals, but it was already being used in Kingston, Jamaica as the name of a slower dance and style of rocksteady.^[3] Reggae artist Derrick Morgan stated:

We didn't like the name rock steady, so I tried a different version of 'Fat Man'. It changed the beat again, it used the organ to creep. Bunny Lee, the producer, liked that. He created the sound with the organ and the rhythm guitar. It sounded like 'reggae, reggae' and that name just took off. Bunny Lee started using the world [sic] and soon all the musicians were saying 'reggae, reggae, reggae'.^[3]

Reggae historian Steve Barrow credits Clancy Eccles with altering the Jamaican patois word streggae (loose woman) into reggae.^[3] However, Toots Hibbert said:

There's a word we used to use in Jamaica called 'streggae'. If a girl is walking and the guys look at her and say 'Man, she's streggae' it means she don't dress well, she look raggedy. The girls would say that about the men too. This one morning me and my two friends were playing and I said, 'OK man, let's do the reggay.' It was just something that came out of my mouth. So we just start singing 'Do the reggay, do the reggay' and created a beat. People tell me later that we had given the sound its name. Before that people had called it blue-beat and all kind of other things. Now it's in the Guinness World of Records.^[4]

Bob Marley is said to have claimed that the word reggae came from a Spanish term for "the king's music".^[5] The liner notes of To the King, a compilation of Christian gospel reggae, suggest that the word reggae was derived from the Latin regi meaning "to the king".

country music

2011-06-26T07:59:00.000-07:00

blues music

2011-06-26T07:55:00.000-07:00

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre^[1] that originated in African-American communities of primarily the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads.^[2] The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll is characterized by specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues chord progression is the most common. The blue notes that, for expressive purposes are sung or played flattened or gradually bent (minor 3rd to major 3rd) in relation to the pitch of the major scale, are also an important part of the sound.
The blues genre is based on the blues form but possesses other characteristics such as specific lyrics, bass lines and instruments. Blues can be subdivided into several subgenres ranging from country to urban blues that were more or less popular during different periods of the 20th century. Best known are the Delta, Piedmont, Jump and Chicago blues styles. World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues-rock evolved.
The term "the blues" refers to the "blue devils", meaning melancholy and sadness; an early use of the term in this sense is found in George Colman's one-act farce Blue Devils (1798).^[3] Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to since 1912, when Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" became the first copyrighted blues composition.^[4]^[5] In lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood

hip hop music

2011-06-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

Hip hop music is an American musical genre that developed as part of hip hop culture, and is defined by four key stylistic elements: rapping, DJing/scratching, sampling (or synthesis), and beatboxing. Hip hop began in the South Bronx of New York City in the 1970s. The term rap is often used synonymously with hip hop, but hip hop also denotes the practices of an entire subculture.^[1]
Rapping, also referred to as MCing or emceeing, is a vocal style in which the artist speaks lyrically, in rhyme and verse, generally to an instrumental or synthesized beat. Beats, almost always in 4/4 time signature, can be created by sampling and/or sequencing portions of other songs by a producer.^[2] They also incorporate synthesizers, drum machines, and live bands. Rappers may write, memorize, or improvise their lyrics and perform their works a cappella or to a beat.

Origin of the term

Creation of the term hip hop is often credited to Keith Cowboy, rapper with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.^[3] However, Lovebug Starski, Keith Cowboy, and DJ Hollywood used the term when the music was still known as disco rap. It is believed that Cowboy created the term while teasing a friend who had just joined the U.S. Army, by scat singing the words "hip/hop/hip/hop" in a way that mimicked the rhythmic cadence of marching soldiers.^[3] Cowboy later worked the "hip hop" cadence into a part of his stage performance, which was quickly used by other artists such as The Sugarhill Gang in "Rapper's Delight".^[3]
Universal Zulu Nation founder Afrika Bambaataa is credited with first using the term to describe the subculture in which the music belonged; although it is also suggested that it was a derogatory term to describe the type of music.^[4] The first use of the term in print was in The Village Voice,^[5] by Steven Hager, later author of a 1984 history of hip hop.

pop music

2011-06-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

Pop music (a term that originally derives from an abbreviation of "popular") is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented towards a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes. Pop music has absorbed influences from most other forms of popular music, but as a genre is particularly associated with the rock and roll and later rock style.Hatch and Millward define pop music as "a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz and folk musics".^[1] Although pop music is often seen as oriented towards the singles charts it is not the sum of all chart music, which has always contained songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs, while pop music as a genre is usually seen as existing and developing separately.^[2] Thus "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, aimed at a youth market, often characterized as a softer alternative to rock and roll

Origin of the term

The term "pop song," is first recorded as being used in 1926 in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal".^[4] Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music.^[5]
According to Grove Music Online, the term "pop music" "originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for Rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced ...".^[6] The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pop's "earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience ...[,] since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical music, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, ABBA, etc."^[7] Grove Music Online also states that "... in the early 1960s [the term] ‘pop music’ competed terminologically with Beat music [in England], while in the USA its coverage overlapped (as it still does) with that of ‘rock and roll’."^[6] Chambers' Dictionary mentions the contemporary usage of the term "pop art";^[8] Grove Music Online states that the "term pop music ... seems to have been a spin-off from the terms pop art and pop culture, coined slightly earlier, and referring to a whole range of new, often American, media-culture products".^[6]
From about 1967 the term was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms.^[9] Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of popular music,^[9] pop was more commercial, ephemeral and accessible.^[10] According to Simon Frith pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", is "designed to appeal to everyone" and "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste". It is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward ... and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative". It is, "provided from on high (by record companies, radio programmers and concert promoters) rather than being made from below ... Pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged".

gothic rock

2011-06-26T07:27:00.000-07:00

Gothic rock (also referred to as goth rock or simply goth) is a musical subgenre of post-punk and alternative rock that formed during the late 1970s. Gothic rock bands grew from the strong ties they had to the English punk rock and emerging post-punk scenes. The genre itself was defined as a separate movement from punk rock during the early 1980s largely due to the significant stylistic divergences of the movement; gothic rock, as opposed to punk, combines dark, often keyboard-heavy music with introspective and depressing lyrics. Notable gothic rock bands include Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cocteau Twins, The Cure, The Sisters of Mercy, Virgin Prunes, Sex Gang Children, Paradise Lost, Christian Death, The Damned,^[2] Southern Death Cult,^[3] This Mortal Coil, Flesh for Lulu,^[4] UK Decay, The Mission, Specimen, Theatre of Hate, Theatre of Ice, Xmal Deutschland, The Danse Society, Dead Can Dance, Clan of Xymox, 45 Grave, Gene Loves Jezebel,^[5] Kommunity FK, Fields of the Nephilim and Alien Sex Fiend, among many others. Gothic rock gave rise to a broader goth subculture that includes clubs, fashion and numerous publications that grew in popularity in the 1980s.

Style, roots and influences

Gothic rock takes the guitar and synthesizer sounds of post-punk and uses them to construct "foreboding, sorrowful, often epic soundscapes".^[6] According to music journalist Simon Reynolds, standard musical fixtures of the genre include "scything guitar patterns, high-pitched basslines that often usurped the melodic role; [and] beats that were either hypnotically dirgelike or 'tribal'".^[7] Reynolds described the vocal style as consisting of "deep, droning alloys of Jim Morrison and Leonard Cohen".^[7] Many goth bands use drum machines that do not stress the back beat in the rhythm.^[8] Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure tended to play the flanging guitar effect, producing a brittle, cold, and harsh sound that contrasted with their psychedelic rock predecessors.^[9]
Gothic rock typically deals with dark themes addressed through lyrics and the music atmosphere. The poetic sensibilities of the genre led gothic rock lyrics to exhibit literary romanticism, morbidity, religious symbolism, and/or supernatural mysticism.^[6] Musicians who initially shaped the aesthetics and musical conventions of gothic rock include The Velvet Underground, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and The Sex Pistols.^[10] Nico's 1969 album, The Marble Index, was also particularly influential.^[11] Gothic rock creates a dark atmosphere by drawing influence from the drones used by protopunk group The Velvet Underground, and many goth singers are influenced by the "deep and dramatic" vocal timbre of David Bowie, albeit singing at even lower pitches.^[8] J.G. Ballard was a strong lyrical influence for many of the early gothic rock groups; The Birthday Party drew on Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire.^[12]
In 1976, Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice was published. The main character, although dark, wanted companionship and love. The book, according to music journalist Dave Thompson, slowly created an audience for gothic rock by word of mouth. The same year saw the punk rock band The Damned debut. The group's vocalist Dave Vanian was a former gravedigger who dressed like a vampire 24 hours a day. Brian James, a guitarist for the group, noted, "Other groups had safety pins and the spitting and bondage trousers, but you went to a Damned show, and half the local cemetery would be propped up against the stage".^[13]

History

Origins and early development

The term gothic was used to describe Velvet Underground singer Nico as early in 1971. The term was used occasionally in the years that followed.^[13] In the late 1970s, the word "gothic" was used to describe the atmosphere of post-punk bands like Joy Division. In 1979, Martin Hannett described Joy Division as "dancing music with Gothic overtones".^[14] The same year, Tony Wilson described the band as "gothic" on the television show Something Else.^[15] Not long after, the term was used in a derogatory fashion in reference to bands such as Bauhaus and Siouxsie and the Banshees.^[16] However, the term was not adopted as "positive identity, a tribal rallying cry" until a shift in the scene in 1982.^[14] In addition, Simon Reynolds identifies The Birthday Party and Killing Joke as essential proto-goth groups.^[17] Despite their legacy as progenitors of gothic rock, these groups disliked the label.^[18] Adam Ant's early work was also a major impetus for the gothic rock scene, and much of the fan base came from his milieu.^[19]
Bauhaus's debut single "Bela Lugosi's Dead", released in late 1979, is considered to be the beginning of the gothic rock genre.^[20] According to Peter Murphy the song was written to be tongue in cheek but since the group performed it with "naive seriousness" that is how the audience understood it.^[13] Around the same time post-punk bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure fully embraced the goth sound.^[6] With their fourth album, 1981's Juju, the Banshees established many of the classic Gothic qualities, lyrically and sonically.^[21] Steve Severin attributes the supernatural lyrical aesthetic of the album to the influence of The Cramps.^[21] The Cure were the most commercially successful of these groups, eventually recording two double platinum albums.^[22] The Cure's style was atmospheric and withdrawn, contrasting with their contemporaries The Birthday Party, who drew on funk, blues, and spastic, violent turmoil.^[23] Their 1981 single "Release the Bats" was particularly influential in the scene.^[24] Killing Joke were originally inspired by Public Image Ltd., borrowing from funk, disco, dub, and later, heavy metal.^[25] Calling their style "tension music", Killing Joke distorted these elements to provocative effect, as well as producing a morbid, politically-charged visual style.^[25]

Bauhaus live in concert 2006.

Gothic rock thrived in the early 1980s. Clubs such as the Batcave, in London, provided a venue for the goth scene.^[26] In 1982, Ian Astbury of the band Southern Death Cult used the term "gothic goblins" to describe Sex Gang Children's fans.^[27] Southern Death Cult were themselves icons of the scene, drawing aesthetic inspiration from Native American culture. The group appeared on the cover of NME in October 1982.^[28] The emerging scene was described as "positive punk" in a February 1983 article in NME. Journalist Richard North described Bauhaus and Theatre of Hate as "the immediate forerunners of today's flood" and declared, "So here it is: the new positive punk, with no empty promises of revolution, either in the rock'n'roll sense or the wider political sphere. Here is only a chance of self awareness, of personal revolution, of colourful perception and galvanisation of the imagination that startles the slumbering mind and body from their sloth."^[29] That year, myriad Goth groups emerged, including Flesh for Lulu, Play Dead, Rubella Ballet, Gene Loves Jezebel, UK Decay, Blood and Roses, The Virgin Prunes and Ausgang.^[30] The 4AD label released music in a lighter, more ethereal style, by groups such as Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance and Xmal Deutschland.^[30] The Icelandic group Kukl also appeared in this period, which included Björk and other musicians who later participated in The Sugarcubes.^[30]
Simon Reynolds speaks of a shift from early Goth to gothic rock proper, advanced by The Sisters of Mercy.^[31] As journalist Jennifer Park puts it, "the original blueprint for gothic rock had mutated significantly. Doom and gloom was no longer confined to its characteristic atmospherics, but as the Sisters demonstrated, it could really rock."^[32] The Sisters of Mercy, influenced by Leonard Cohen, Gary Glitter, Motörhead, The Stooges, The Velvet Underground, The Birthday Party, Suicide and The Fall, created a new, harder form of gothic rock.^[33] In addition, they incorporated a drum machine.^[33] Reynolds identifies their 1983 single "Temple of Love" as the quintessential Goth anthem of the year, along with Southern Death Cult's "Fatman".^[34] The group created their own record label, Merciful Release, which also signed The March Violets, who performed in a similar style.^[35] The Violets toured with The Danse Society, a group inspired by The Cure in their Pornography Peri.

grunge music

2011-06-25T22:05:00.000-07:00

Grunge (sometimes referred to as the Seattle sound) is a sub genre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song dynamics, and apathetic or angst-filled lyrics. The grunge aesthetic is stripped-down compared to other forms of rock music, and many grunge musicians were noted for their unkempt appearances and rejection of theatrics.
The early grunge movement coalesced around Seattle independent record label Sub Pop in the late 1980s. Grunge became commercially successful in the first half of the 1990s, due mainly to the release of Nirvana's Nevermind and Pearl Jam's Ten. The success of these bands boosted the popularity of alternative rock and made grunge the most popular form of hard rock music at the time. However, many grunge bands were uncomfortable with this popularity. Although most grunge bands had disbanded or faded from view by the late 1990s, their influence continues to affect modern rock music.
Grunge is generally characterized by a sludgy guitar sound that uses a high level of distortion, fuzz and feedback effects. Grunge fuses elements of hardcore punk and heavy metal, although some bands performed with more emphasis on one or the other. The music shares with punk a raw sound and similar lyrical concerns. However, it also involves much slower tempos, dissonant harmonies, and more complex instrumentation – which is reminiscent of heavy metal. Some individuals associated with the development of grunge, including Sub Pop producer Jack Endino and the Melvins, explained grunge's incorporation of heavy rock influences such as Kiss as "musical provocation". Grunge artists considered these bands "cheesy" but nonetheless enjoyed them; Buzz Osborne of the Melvins described it as an attempt to see what ridiculous things bands could do and get away with. In the early 1990s, Nirvana's signature "stop-start" song format became a genre convention.

Themes

Lyrics are typically angst-filled, often addressing themes such as social alienation, apathy, confinement, and a desire for freedom. A number of factors influenced the focus on such subject matter. Many grunge musicians displayed a general disenchantment with the state of society, as well as a discomfort with social prejudices. Such themes bear similarities to those addressed by punk rock musiciansand the perceptions of Generation X. Music critic Simon Reynolds said in 1992 that "there's a feeling of burnout in the culture at large. Kids are depressed about the future."^[6] Humor in grunge often satirized glam metal—for example, Sound gardens "Big Dumb Sex"—and other forms of popular rock music during the 1980s.

Presentation and fashion

Grunge concerts were known for being straightforward, high-energy performances. Grunge bands rejected the complex and high budget presentations of many musical genres, including the use of complex light arrays, pyrotechnics, and other visual effects unrelated to playing the music. Stage acting was generally avoided. Instead the bands presented themselves as no different from minor local bands. Jack Endino said in the 1996 documentary Hype! that Seattle bands were inconsistent live performers, since their primary objective was not to be entertainers, but simply to "rock out".
Clothing commonly worn by grunge musicians in Washington consisted of thrift store items and the typical outdoor clothing (most notably flannel shirts) of the region, as well as a generally unkempt appearance. The style did not evolve out of a conscious attempt to create an appealing fashion; music journalist Charles R. Cross said, "[Nirvana frontman] Kurt Cobain was just too lazy to shampoo," and Sub Pop's Jonathan Poneman said, "This [clothing] is cheap, it's durable, and it's kind of timeless. It also runs against the grain of the whole flashy aesthetic that existed in the 80s."

History

Roots and influences

Grunge's sound partly results from Seattle's isolation from other music scenes. As Sub Pop's Jonathan Poneman noted, "Seattle was a perfect example of a secondary city with an active music scene that was completely ignored by an American media fixated on Los Angeles and New York."Mark Arm claimed that the isolation meant, "this one corner of the map was being really inbred and ripping off each others ideas."^[9] Grunge evolved from the local punk rock scene, and was inspired by bands such as The Fartz, The U-Men, 10 Minute Warning, The Accüsed, and the Fastbacks. Additionally, the slow, heavy, and sludgy style of the Melvins was a significant influence on the grunge sound.
Outside the Pacific Northwest, a number of artists and music scenes influenced grunge. Alternative rock bands from the Northeastern United States, including Sonic Youth, Pixies, and Dinosaur Jr., are important influences on the genre. Through their patronage of Seattle bands, Sonic Youth "inadvertently nurtured" the grunge scene, and reinforced the fiercely independent attitudes of its musicians. The influence of the Pixies on Nirvana was noted by Kurt Cobain, who commented in a Rolling Stone interview that he "connected with the band so heavily that I should be in that band." Nirvana's use of the Pixies' "soft verse, hard chorus" popularized this stylistic approach in both grunge and other alternative rock sub genres.
Aside from the genre's punk and alternative rock roots, many grunge bands were equally influenced by heavy metal of the early 1970s. Clinton Heylin, author of Babylon's Burning: From Punk to Grunge, cited Black Sabbath as "perhaps the most ubiquitous pre-punk influence on the northwest scene." Black Sabbath played a role in shaping the grunge sound, through their own records and the records they inspired. The influence of Led Zeppelin is also evident, particularly in the work of Sound garden, whom Q magazine noted were "in thrall to '70s rock, but contemptuous of the genre's overt sexism and machismo." The Los Angeles hardcore punk band Black Flag's 1984 record My War, on which the band combined heavy metal with their traditional sound, made a strong impact in Seattle. Mud honey's Steve Turner commented, "A lot of other people around the country hated the fact that Black Flag slowed down ... but up here it was really great ... we were like 'Yay!' They were weird and fucked-up sounding." Turner explained grunge's integration of metal influences, noting, "Hard rock and metal was never that much of an enemy of punk like it was for other scenes. Here, it was like, 'There's only twenty people here, you can't really find a group to hate.'" Bands began to mix metal and punk in the Seattle music scene around 1984, with much of the credit for this fusion going to The U-Men.
The raw, distorted and feedback-intensive sound of some noise rock bands had an influence on grunge. Among them are Wisconsin's Killdozer, and most notably San Francisco's Flipper, a band known for its slowed-down and murky "noise punk." The Butthole Surfers' mix of punk, heavy metal and noise rock was a major influence, particularly on the early work of Sound garden. Sound garden and other early grunge bands were influenced by British post-punk bands such as Gang of Four and Bauhaus, which were popular in the early 1980s Seattle scene. After Neil Young played a few concerts with Pearl Jam and recorded the album Mirror Ball with them, some members of the media gave Young the title "Godfather of Grunge." This was grounded on his work with his band Crazy Horse and his regular use of distorted guitar, most notably on the album Rust Never Sleeps. A similarly influential yet often overlooked album is Neurotica by Redd Kross, about which the co-founder of Sub Pop said, "Neurotica was a life changer for me and for a lot of people in the Seattle music community."

Early development

The cover artwork for the C/Z Records compilation album Deep Six. Released in 1986, the album was the first to showcase Seattle's developing grunge scene.

A seminal release in the development of grunge was the Deep Six compilation, released by C/Z Records in 1986. The record featured multiple tracks by six bands: Green River, Sound garden, Melvins, Malfunkshun, Skin Yard, and The U-Men. For many of them it was their first appearance on record. The artists had "a mostly heavy, aggressive sound that melded the slower tempos of heavy metal with the intensity of hardcore." As Jack Endino recalled, "People just said, 'Well, what kind of music is this? This isn't metal, it's not punk, What is it?' [...] People went 'Eureka! These bands all have something in common.'"
Later that year Bruce Pavitt released the Sub Pop 100 compilation and Green River's Dry As a Bone EP as part of his new label, Sub Pop. An early Sub Pop catalog described the Green River EP as "ultra-loose GRUNGE that destroyed the morals of a generation." Sub Pop's Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman, inspired by other regional music scenes in music history, worked to ensure that their label projected a "Seattle sound," reinforced by a similar style of production and album packaging. While music writer Michael Azerrad acknowledged that early grunge bands like Mudhoney, Soundgarden, and Tad had disparate sounds, he noted "to the objective observer, there were some distinct similarities." Early grunge concerts were sparsely attended (many by fewer than a dozen people) but Sub Pop photographer Charles Peterson's pictures helped create the impression that such concerts were major events.Mud honey, which was formed by former members of Green River, served as the flagship band of Sub Pop during their entire time with the label and spearheaded the Seattle grunge movement. Other record labels in the Pacific Northwest that helped promote grunge included C/Z Records, Estrus Records, empty Records and Pop Llama Records.
Grunge attracted media attention in the United Kingdom after Pavitt and Poneman asked journalist Everett True from the British magazine Melody Maker to write an article on the local music scene. This exposure helped to make grunge known outside of the local area during the late 1980s and drew more people to local shows. The appeal of grunge to the music press was that it "promised the return to a notion of a regional, authorial vision for American rock." Grunge's popularity in the underground music scene was such that bands began to move to Seattle and approximate the look and sound of the original grunge bands. Mudhoney's Steve Turner said, "It was really bad. Pretend bands were popping up here, things weren't coming from where we were coming from." As a reaction, many grunge bands diversified their sound, with Nirvana and Tad in particular creating more melodic songs. Dawn Anderson of the Seattle fanzine Backlash recalled that by 1990 many locals had tired of the hype surrounding the Seattle scene and hoped that media exposure had dissipated.

punk music

2011-06-25T22:04:00.000-07:00

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock. They created fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY ethic, with many bands self-producing their recordings and distributing them through informal channels.
By late 1976, bands such as the Ramones, in New York City, and the Sex Pistols and The Clash, in London, were recognized as the vanguard of a new musical movement. The following year saw punk rock spreading around the world, and it became a major cultural phenomenon in the United Kingdom. For the most part, punk took root in local scenes that tended to reject association with the mainstream. An associated punk subculture emerged, expressing youthful rebellion and characterized by distinctive styles of clothing and adornment and a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies.
By the beginning of the 1980s, faster, more aggressive styles such as hardcore and Oi! had become the predominant mode of punk rock. Musicians identifying with or inspired by punk also pursued a broad range of other variations, giving rise to post-punk and the alternative rock movement. By the turn of the century, pop punk had been adopted by the mainstream, as bands such as Green Day and The Offspring brought the genre widespread popularity.
The first wave of punk rock aimed to be aggressively modern, distancing itself from the bombast and sentimentality of early 1970s rock.^[3] According to Ramones drummer Tommy Ramone, "In its initial form, a lot of [1960s] stuff was innovative and exciting. Unfortunately, what happens is that people who could not hold a candle to the likes of Hendrix started noodling away. Soon you had endless solos that went nowhere. By 1973, I knew that what was needed was some pure, stripped down, no bullshit rock 'n' roll."^[4] John Holmstrom, founding editor of Punk magazine, recalls feeling "punk rock had to come along because the rock scene had become so tame that [acts] like Billy Joel and Simon and Garfunkel were being called rock and roll, when to me and other fans, rock and roll meant this wild and rebellious music."^[5] In critic Robert Christgau's description, "It was also a subculture that scornfully rejected the political idealism and Californian flower-power silliness of hippie myth."^[6] Patti Smith, in contrast, suggests in the documentary 25 Years of Punk that the hippies and the punk rockers were linked by a common anti-establishment mentality.
Throughout punk rock history, technical accessibility and a DIY spirit have been prized. In the early days of punk rock, this ethic stood in marked contrast to what those in the scene regarded as the ostentatious musical effects and technological demands of many mainstream rock bands.^[7] Musical virtuosity was often looked on with suspicion. According to Holmstrom, punk rock was "rock and roll by people who didn't have very much skills as musicians but still felt the need to express themselves through music".^[5] In December 1976, the English fanzine Sideburns published a now-famous illustration of three chords, captioned "This is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now form a band."^[8] The title of a 1980 single by New York punk band The Stimulator s, "Loud Fast Rules!", inscribed a catchphrase for punk's basic musical approach.^[9]
Some of British punk rock's leading figures made a show of rejecting not only contemporary mainstream rock and the broader culture it was associated with, but their own most celebrated predecessors: "No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones in 1977", declared The Clash song "1977".^[10] The previous year, when the punk rock revolution began in Great Britain, was to be both a musical and a cultural "Year Zero".^[11] Even as nostalgia was discarded, many in the scene adopted a nihilistic attitude summed up by the Sex Pistols slogan "No Future";^[3] in the later words of one observer, amid the unemployment and social unrest in 1977, "punk's nihilistic swagger was the most thrilling thing in England."^[12] While "self-imposed alienation" was common among "drunk punks" and "gutter punks", there was always a tension between their nihilistic outlook and the "radical leftist utopian-ism"^[13] of bands such as Crass, who found positive, liberating meaning in the movement. As a Clash associate describes singer Joe Strummer's outlook, "Punk rock is meant to be our freedom. We're meant to be able to do what we want to do."^[14]
The issue of authenticity is important in the punk subculture—the pejorative term "poseur" is applied to those who associate with punk and adopt its stylistic attributes but are deemed not to share or understand the underlying values and philosophy. Scholar Daniel S. Traber argues that "attaining authenticity in the punk identity can be difficult"; as the punk scene matured, he observes, eventually "everyone got called a poseur".^[15]

jazz music

2011-06-25T22:02:00.000-07:00

Jazz is a musical tradition and style of music that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th century American popular music.^[1] Its West African pedigree is evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation, and the swung note.^[2]
The word "jazz" (in early years also spelled "jass") began as a West Coast slang term and was first used to refer to music in Chicago at about 1915.
From its beginnings in the early 20th century jazz has spawned a variety of sub genres: New Orleans Dixieland dating from the early 1910s, big band-style swing from the 1930s and 1940s, bebop from the mid-1940s, a variety of Latin jazz fusions such as Afro-Cuban and , free jazz from the 1950s and 1960s, jazz fusion from the 1970s, acid jazz from the 1980s (which added funk and hip-hop influences), and nu jazz in the 1990s. As the music has spread around the world it has drawn on local, national, and regional musical cultures, its aesthetics being adapted to its varied environments and giving rise to many distinctive styles.
Jazz can be very difficult to define because it spans from Ragtime marches to 2000s-era fusion. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions—using the point of view of European music history or African music for example—but jazz critic Joachim Berendt argues that all such attempts are unsatisfactory.^[3] One way to get around the definitional problems is to define the term "jazz" more broadly. Berendt defines jazz as a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of blacks with European music"; he argues that jazz differs from European music in that jazz has a "special relationship to time, defined as 'swing'", "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role"; and "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician".

Travis Jackson has also proposed a broader definition of jazz which is able to encompass all of the radically different eras: he states that it is music that includes qualities such as "swinging", improvising, group interaction, developing an 'individual voice', and being 'open' to different musical possibilities".^[4] Krin Gabbard claims that “jazz is a construct” or category that, while artificial, still is useful to designate “a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition”.^[5]
While jazz may be difficult to define, improvisation is clearly one of its key elements. Early blues was commonly structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, a common element in the African American oral tradition. A form of folk music which rose in part from work songs and field hollers of rural Blacks, early blues was also highly improvisational. These features are fundamental to the nature of jazz. While in European classical music elements of interpretation, ornamentation and accompaniment are sometimes left to the performer's discretion, the performer's primary goal is to play a composition as it was written.
In jazz, however, the skilled performer will interpret a tune in very individual ways, never playing the same composition exactly the same way twice. Depending upon the performer's mood and personal experience, interactions with fellow musicians, or even members of the audience, a jazz musician/performer may alter melodies, harmonies or time signature at will. The jazz soloist is supported by a rhythm section who "comp", by playing chords and rhythms that outline the song structure and complement the soloist.^[6] European classical music has been said to be a composer's medium. Jazz, however, is often characterized as the product of egalitarian creativity, interaction and collaboration, placing equal value on the contributions of composer and performer, 'adroitly weigh[ing] the respective claims of the composer and the improviser'.^[7]
In New Orleans and Dixieland jazz, performers took turns playing the melody, while others improvised counter melodies. By the swing era, big bands were coming to rely more on arranged music: arrangements were either written or learned by ear and memorized—many early jazz performers could not read music. Individual soloists would improvise within these arrangements. Later, in bebop the focus shifted back towards small groups and minimal arrangements; the melody (known as the "head") would be stated briefly at the start and end of a piece but the core of the performance would be the series of improvisations in the middle. Later styles of jazz such as modal jazz abandoned the strict notion of a chord progression, allowing the individual musicians to improvise even more freely within the context of a given scale or mode.^[8] The avant-garde and free jazz idioms permit, even call for, abandoning chords, scales, and rhythmic meters.

metal music

2011-06-25T21:58:00.001-07:00

Heavy metal (often referred to simply as metal) is a genre of rock music^[1] that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the United Kingdom and the United States.^[2] With roots in blues rock and psychedelic rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness. Heavy metal lyrics and performance styles are generally associated with masculinity and machismo.^[3]
The first heavy metal bands such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple attracted large audiences, though they were often critically reviled, a status common throughout the history of the genre. In the mid-1970s Judas Priest helped spur the genre's evolution by discarding much of its blues influence; Motörhead introduced a punk rock sensibility and an increasing emphasis on speed. Bands in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal such as Iron Maiden followed in a similar vein. Before the end of the decade, heavy metal had attracted a worldwide following of fans known as "metalheads" or "headbangers".
In the 1980s, glam metal became a major commercial force with groups like Mötley Crüe and Poison. Underground scenes produced an array of more extreme, aggressive styles: thrash metal broke into the mainstream with bands such as Metallica, Megadeath, Slayer, and Anthrax, while other styles like death metal and black metal remain subcultural phenomena. Since the mid-1990s, popular styles such as nu metal, which often incorporates elements of grunge and hip hop; and metal core, which blends extreme metal with hardcore punk, have further expanded the definition of the genre. Talking to my experiences i must say im also into a metal band too we too play lot of metal bands song of legendary metal bands like black sabbath,ac/dc,megadeath,but we often play of Metallica,we have given cover to most of the Metallica songs such as seek and destroy,Tuesdays gone,the day that never comes etc.. I've realized metal songs especially heavy requires a heavy on vocals,i do experiment most on my vocals during our jamming session.

ROCK

2011-06-25T21:57:00.000-07:00

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources.
Musically, rock has centred around the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with bass guitar and drums. Typically, rock is song-based music with a 4/4 beat utilizing a verse-chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse and common musical characteristics are difficult to define. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. The dominance of rock by white, male musicians has been seen as one of the key factors shaping the themes explored in rock music. Rock places a higher degree of emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and an ideology of authenticity than pop music.
By the late 1960s a number of distinct rock music sub-genres had emerged, including hybrids like folk rock, blues-rock, country rock, raga rock, and jazz-rock fusion, many of which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock influenced by the counter-cultural psychedelic scene. New genres that emerged from this scene included progressive rock, which extended the artistic elements; glam rock, which highlighted showmanship and visual style, and the diverse and enduring major sub-genre of heavy metal, which emphasized volume, power and speed. In the second half of the 1970s, punk rock both intensified and reacted against some of these trends to produce a raw, energetic form of music characterized by overt political and social critiques. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of other sub-genres, including New Wave, post punk and eventually the alternative rock movement. From the 1990s alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop, and indie rock. Further fusion sub-genres have since emerged, including pop punk, rap rock, and rap metal, as well as conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including the garage rock/post punk revival at the beginning of the new millennium.
Rock music has also embodied and served as the vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major sub-cultures including mods and rockers in the UK and the "hippie" counterculture that spread out from San Francisco in the US in the 1960s. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of the protest song, rock music has been associated with political activism as well as changes in social attitudes to race, sex and drug use, and is often seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult consumerism and conformity.