"I rock ‘em, roll ‘em, all night long," bragged the Dominoes' bass singer, Bill Brown. The year was 1951, and the raunchy lyrics were from Sixty Minute Man, a song whose popularity would be reincarnated years later in the movie Bull Durham. At the time, Brown didn't realize he was making history in two ways. First of all, his "rock ‘em, roll ‘em" reference would give title to a new style of music taking shape on the American horizon. Secondly, after spending 14 weeks at #1 on the Rhythm and Blues chart, Sixty Minute Man would peak at #17 on the mainstream Pop chart, making it the first crossover single in American music history.
The phenomenon would pick up steam as white teenagers continued to tap into the predominately-Negro world of R&B. In 1953, The Orioles' Crying in the Chapel just missed the coveted Pop Top Ten by stalling at #11. Despite being banned by the FCC for suggestive lyrics in 1954, Hank Ballard's Work with Me Annie sold a million singles without radio airplay, as did the sequels Annie Had a Baby and Annie's Aunt Fannie. Yes, America-times were a-changin'!
One artist who recognized the change in trends early on was Sam Cooke. A popular lead singer with the gospel Soul Stirrers, Cooke saw that younger listeners were rapidly abandoning Gospel for more liberated forms of music. By 1955, Chuck Berry and Little Richard had successfully targeted the teenage Rock & Roll market and scored hits with Maybellene and Tutti Fruitti respectively. Looking to capitalize in the same respect, Cooke made the transition from Gospel to Pop with the release of You Send Me in 1957.
"It was a huge risk on Sam's part," Cooke's youngest brother David remarked. "Pop music was seen as the devil's music by people in the church. If he failed in Pop after losing his Gospel fan base, he wouldn't have had anywhere to turn. His career could've began and ended at the same time."
By singing with clear diction and utilizing white background singers, Cooke intentionally created a sound that wouldn't be categorized as ethnic, but one that would be more conducive to a mainstream audience. He figured if he were to target two markets, his chance of success would double as well. Casey Kasem, who would eventually become a nationally-recognized radio host in his own right, was a DJ on Detroit's WJBK in the fall of 1957. Kasem is credited as being the first jock to play You Send Me on a traditionally Rock & Roll station. The rest, as they say, is history. With Cooke's gospel roots bubbling below the surface, You Send Me rose to #1 on both the Pop and R&B charts, creating a whole new sound the world called Soul.
The genre-mixing, "Top 40" format many radio stations adopted in the 1980's has been blurred even more by the popularity of Rap and Hip Hop. Nevertheless, credit should be given to those brave pioneers-artists and disc jockeys alike-who blazed the trail during one of the greatest eras in American music history. It's only because they dared to venture outside their comfort zone that popular music as universally accepted as it is today.
By: Erik Greene
Friday, October 12, 2007
Rock music has many genres
Rock music is a popular from of music that is accompanied by instruments like drums, guitar and bass. Rock music in itself has many styles that were incorporated by musicians who loved this music. One can come across rock music where instruments like synthesizers, piano and organ is also used. Rock music began in the early fifties in United States and the United Kingdom and like all popular music has it own loyal fan following. Rock music was subsequently mixed with many other elements of music to give their own touch to rock music. Rock song subsequently over the years had many new genres added in its fold.
So in 1970s jazz was blended with rock to create jazz rock music, and then it was blended with folk music resulting in folk rock and later Latin, soul and funk music also had its influences on rock music at times. Today we have different categories under rock music and some of the popular ones are heavy metal rock, progressive rock, blues rock, soft rock, punk rock and techno rock among others. In the 1980’s and 1990’s many new additional genres of rock music such as Brit pop rock, Indie rock, alternative rock, hard rock and grunge style rock were introduced. The United Kingdom is another country where rock country flourished and British rock is also as famous as American rock music all over the world.
One of the greatest rock music band The Beatles is from Britain and they are famous worldwide for their songs and rock music. Through 1970 Pink Floyd was the most influential band in the rock music scene. This group had four artists and all of them were from Britain. The kind of rock music that Pink Floyd was sang was known as psychedelic rock. The folk scene combined with rock gave the new term folk rock. Here all the traditional songs were combined with the instruments that were traditionally associated with rock music. This genre of music was pioneered by Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie. Some of the other popular rock folk rock music artists include Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and The Band.
Progressive rock is one genre of rock music which went beyond the established musical norms and was more experimental in nature. Singers and musicians that were associated with this genre loved to experiment with different types of instruments, beats, musical forms of type of songs. Bands that played progressive rock music borrowed elements from jazz, folk, electronic and classical music to experiment with rock that turned out to be very successful. Some of the bands that were into singing progressive rock included Camel, Can, Barclay James Harvest, King Crimson, Magma and Yes among many others. Music be it of any kind rock music, house music, gospel music, folk music or country music each has its own touch and of course its own group of loyal followers.
By: Kati Makat
So in 1970s jazz was blended with rock to create jazz rock music, and then it was blended with folk music resulting in folk rock and later Latin, soul and funk music also had its influences on rock music at times. Today we have different categories under rock music and some of the popular ones are heavy metal rock, progressive rock, blues rock, soft rock, punk rock and techno rock among others. In the 1980’s and 1990’s many new additional genres of rock music such as Brit pop rock, Indie rock, alternative rock, hard rock and grunge style rock were introduced. The United Kingdom is another country where rock country flourished and British rock is also as famous as American rock music all over the world.
One of the greatest rock music band The Beatles is from Britain and they are famous worldwide for their songs and rock music. Through 1970 Pink Floyd was the most influential band in the rock music scene. This group had four artists and all of them were from Britain. The kind of rock music that Pink Floyd was sang was known as psychedelic rock. The folk scene combined with rock gave the new term folk rock. Here all the traditional songs were combined with the instruments that were traditionally associated with rock music. This genre of music was pioneered by Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie. Some of the other popular rock folk rock music artists include Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and The Band.
Progressive rock is one genre of rock music which went beyond the established musical norms and was more experimental in nature. Singers and musicians that were associated with this genre loved to experiment with different types of instruments, beats, musical forms of type of songs. Bands that played progressive rock music borrowed elements from jazz, folk, electronic and classical music to experiment with rock that turned out to be very successful. Some of the bands that were into singing progressive rock included Camel, Can, Barclay James Harvest, King Crimson, Magma and Yes among many others. Music be it of any kind rock music, house music, gospel music, folk music or country music each has its own touch and of course its own group of loyal followers.
By: Kati Makat
Tommy Nutter, Renowned Tailor to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones
The Beatles and The Rolling Stones have been household names since they burst onto the international music scene in the 60’s. The Beatles were seen as leaders and the Stones did their best to imitate, or outdo them but never really managed to achieve either. They had little in common, but shared the same Savile Row tailor Tommy Nutter, who like the Beatles was in a league of his own, allied with another famous name to be, Edward Sexton, they took Savile Row by storm. Tommy shunned the ultra conservative, somewhat stuffy atmosphere, inherent of Savile Row and set about changing its face forever.
In 1966Tommy Nutter and Edward Sexton met as sales boy and cutter respectively at Donaldson, Williams & Ward in The Burlington Arcade. They went on to form the most creative partnership in Savile Row's history. Their legacy is carried forth by Timothy Everest and Richard James, both apprentices to Tommy Nutter. And the remaining partner Edward Sexton.
In 1969 Nutters of Savile Row opened on Valentine's Day and unleashed the Tommy Nutter/Edward Sexton style on swinging London. Backed by Cilla Black and The Beatles' record company Apple's executive Peter Brown, Nutters of Savile Row dressed the entire social spectrum from the Duke of Bedford and Lord Montague to Mick and Bianca Jagger and The Beatles.
You may remember the groundbreaking album “Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” it shook the music industry to its very foundation, nothing like it had ever been done. It was the first concept album and introduced a totally new style of popular rock and roll. No one has been able to produce anything that matches the combined effect it had on music, hairstyle, and graphic art and clothing style. On the cover the “Fab Four” don colourful suits, which became known as the military style and developed by Tommy Nutter. The style has been revived many times over, more recently in 2005- 2006.
Nutters were the first shop on Savile Row to pioneer 'open windows' and wild displays executed by Simon Doonan, which must have been a slap in the face for traditionalists at the time.
Tommy Nutter died in 1992. As a fitting epitaph, one of Nutter's final commissions was the outlandish purple suit Jack Nicholson wore playing The Joker in Tim Burton's Batman Returns. That same year Richard James, the first of the 'New Generation' tailors, opened a shop on Savile Row. James introduced Saturday opening (a revolution on Savile Row) and a fashionable edge not seen since The House of Nutter's glory days.
His demise marked the end of an era and the beginning of another, lead by Richard James, Ozwald Boateng and Timothy Everest, labelled as architects and leading practitioners of the new bespoke movement on Savile Row. With all due respect, Tommy Nutter is a very difficult act to follow. He was the original architect of the new bespoke movement. Using the Beatles and the Rolling Stones as vehicles he catapulted his style creations onto the international arena with unabashed zestful ease.
Credit must also go to non Savile Row participants of a later era. Vivian Westwood rocked the fashion world as much as punk rock did. Punk bands adopted her styles forming a similar coalition to that of the Beatles and Tommy Nutter.
By: Patrick Mcmurray
In 1966Tommy Nutter and Edward Sexton met as sales boy and cutter respectively at Donaldson, Williams & Ward in The Burlington Arcade. They went on to form the most creative partnership in Savile Row's history. Their legacy is carried forth by Timothy Everest and Richard James, both apprentices to Tommy Nutter. And the remaining partner Edward Sexton.
In 1969 Nutters of Savile Row opened on Valentine's Day and unleashed the Tommy Nutter/Edward Sexton style on swinging London. Backed by Cilla Black and The Beatles' record company Apple's executive Peter Brown, Nutters of Savile Row dressed the entire social spectrum from the Duke of Bedford and Lord Montague to Mick and Bianca Jagger and The Beatles.
You may remember the groundbreaking album “Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” it shook the music industry to its very foundation, nothing like it had ever been done. It was the first concept album and introduced a totally new style of popular rock and roll. No one has been able to produce anything that matches the combined effect it had on music, hairstyle, and graphic art and clothing style. On the cover the “Fab Four” don colourful suits, which became known as the military style and developed by Tommy Nutter. The style has been revived many times over, more recently in 2005- 2006.
Nutters were the first shop on Savile Row to pioneer 'open windows' and wild displays executed by Simon Doonan, which must have been a slap in the face for traditionalists at the time.
Tommy Nutter died in 1992. As a fitting epitaph, one of Nutter's final commissions was the outlandish purple suit Jack Nicholson wore playing The Joker in Tim Burton's Batman Returns. That same year Richard James, the first of the 'New Generation' tailors, opened a shop on Savile Row. James introduced Saturday opening (a revolution on Savile Row) and a fashionable edge not seen since The House of Nutter's glory days.
His demise marked the end of an era and the beginning of another, lead by Richard James, Ozwald Boateng and Timothy Everest, labelled as architects and leading practitioners of the new bespoke movement on Savile Row. With all due respect, Tommy Nutter is a very difficult act to follow. He was the original architect of the new bespoke movement. Using the Beatles and the Rolling Stones as vehicles he catapulted his style creations onto the international arena with unabashed zestful ease.
Credit must also go to non Savile Row participants of a later era. Vivian Westwood rocked the fashion world as much as punk rock did. Punk bands adopted her styles forming a similar coalition to that of the Beatles and Tommy Nutter.
By: Patrick Mcmurray
Songwriters: Collaborate for Success
In June, Rolling Stone.com posted the results of a readers poll for the Ten Best Songwriting Duos Ever. A quick look at the top five proves two things: England has indisputably cornered the rock royalty market, and some of pop and rock's greatest songs were created by collaboration.
1. Paul McCartney/John Lennon (the Beatles)
2. Keith Richards/Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones)
3. Elton John/Bernie Taupin (Elton John)
4. Joe Strummer/Mick Jones (the Clash)
5. Johnny Marr/Morrissey (the Smiths)
Clearly, there is no shortage of successful songwriters who prefer to work alone (Pete Townshend, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen). However, judging by the caliber of music that's been created by collaboration, there's an undeniable argument that two heads are better than one when it comes to songwriting.
Indie darling Liz Phair put this theory to task and caused a stir when she elected to write songs for her 2003 self-titled album with Top 40 production team The Matrix. Phair, who enjoyed a faithful following and critical praise from previously released material, told Filter magazine: "I wanted to get on the radio really badly. And I don't write those kinds of songs. I write stuff that's quirky or more personal. So collaborating was a way to get some people who kind of know what they're doing with chord structures, plus they're all so talented and really great people."
Famed songwriter Dianne Warren told John Braheny about the professional advantages a young songwriter has in working with others: "When you write with someone else, you get their whole network of contacts and people they deal with. You have a double shot of getting some major stuff happening."
Traditionally, songwriters have found success by sitting down together with a piano and/or guitar to develop melodies and lyrics. While this method of collaboration is the most obvious, it isn't always the easiest. If you don't have someone living relatively nearby you're faced with the task of traveling to meet musicians for writing sessions. Facing this dilemma, some artists have looked for other ways to create songs together.
A few years ago, the indie-electro duo The Postal Service "wrote and recorded the better part of their debut album, Give Up (Sub Pop), with no budget and while living 1,000 miles apart," according to MTV.com. Band members Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie) and Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel) overcame the distance between them by sending music back and forth through the mail, with Jimmy handling most of the music and Ben responding with lyrics and melody. The Gold-certified success of their album means the pair will repeat the songwriting formula for a follow-up release, this time exchanging song ideas over the Internet.
No surprise, the Internet has become a good source for finding people interested in collaborating on lyrics and music. In 1998, NME reported how legendary artist David Bowie recorded a song using lyrics "written by US fan Alex Grant, who entered a songwriting competition held by Bowie on his website."
A Google search reveals a number of sites dedicated to encouraging and connecting songwriters, such as MusesMuse, Songwriters101 and SongWriterForums. Going one step further, musicians have taken to YouTube to share ideas and invite collaborations. Once such posting by "chuckadile" includes a full backing track--complete with lead and rhythm guitars, drums and bass--with an invitation for viewers to come up with the lyrics and melody.
With thousands of people turning to sites like Echoboost.com to share their music, you might just find somebody online right now with the same taste in music who's looking to collaborate with someone you.
By: Lathum N
1. Paul McCartney/John Lennon (the Beatles)
2. Keith Richards/Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones)
3. Elton John/Bernie Taupin (Elton John)
4. Joe Strummer/Mick Jones (the Clash)
5. Johnny Marr/Morrissey (the Smiths)
Clearly, there is no shortage of successful songwriters who prefer to work alone (Pete Townshend, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen). However, judging by the caliber of music that's been created by collaboration, there's an undeniable argument that two heads are better than one when it comes to songwriting.
Indie darling Liz Phair put this theory to task and caused a stir when she elected to write songs for her 2003 self-titled album with Top 40 production team The Matrix. Phair, who enjoyed a faithful following and critical praise from previously released material, told Filter magazine: "I wanted to get on the radio really badly. And I don't write those kinds of songs. I write stuff that's quirky or more personal. So collaborating was a way to get some people who kind of know what they're doing with chord structures, plus they're all so talented and really great people."
Famed songwriter Dianne Warren told John Braheny about the professional advantages a young songwriter has in working with others: "When you write with someone else, you get their whole network of contacts and people they deal with. You have a double shot of getting some major stuff happening."
Traditionally, songwriters have found success by sitting down together with a piano and/or guitar to develop melodies and lyrics. While this method of collaboration is the most obvious, it isn't always the easiest. If you don't have someone living relatively nearby you're faced with the task of traveling to meet musicians for writing sessions. Facing this dilemma, some artists have looked for other ways to create songs together.
A few years ago, the indie-electro duo The Postal Service "wrote and recorded the better part of their debut album, Give Up (Sub Pop), with no budget and while living 1,000 miles apart," according to MTV.com. Band members Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie) and Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel) overcame the distance between them by sending music back and forth through the mail, with Jimmy handling most of the music and Ben responding with lyrics and melody. The Gold-certified success of their album means the pair will repeat the songwriting formula for a follow-up release, this time exchanging song ideas over the Internet.
No surprise, the Internet has become a good source for finding people interested in collaborating on lyrics and music. In 1998, NME reported how legendary artist David Bowie recorded a song using lyrics "written by US fan Alex Grant, who entered a songwriting competition held by Bowie on his website."
A Google search reveals a number of sites dedicated to encouraging and connecting songwriters, such as MusesMuse, Songwriters101 and SongWriterForums. Going one step further, musicians have taken to YouTube to share ideas and invite collaborations. Once such posting by "chuckadile" includes a full backing track--complete with lead and rhythm guitars, drums and bass--with an invitation for viewers to come up with the lyrics and melody.
With thousands of people turning to sites like Echoboost.com to share their music, you might just find somebody online right now with the same taste in music who's looking to collaborate with someone you.
By: Lathum N
Drug Rehab Might Have Saved Our Popular Rock Stars
Here's a kind of creepy pop quiz: What do many of today's pop/rock artists have in common with '60s pop/rock stars such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and many others? If you answered something like "drug and/or alcohol abuse" you’re only partly right. The complete answer is: the '60s artists all died far too young, and chances are that substance-abusing stars of today will die young too unless their problems are addressed and handled through drug rehab programs.
A new research report from an English university charted the lives of 1,050 American and European pop music artists from 1965 to 2005, and found they are two to three times more likely to die young than the general population. In all, 100 stars died "too young" between 1956 and 2005, amounting to almost ten percent of famous male rockers and more than seven percent of famous female rockers. And according to the report, published in Britain's Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health this week, a quarter of all the musician's deaths were due to alcohol or drug abuse – lives that might have been saved if the artists had reached for drug rehab instead of for more booze and drugs.
The remainder of the early deaths were attributed to high levels of stress, depression and risk-taking behavior, which led to a wide variety of fatal events from accidents to diseases to suicides. American rock stars died at an average age of 42, while European stars averaged even younger deaths at 35. The report doesn't say, and it probably can never be known, how many of these apparent non-drug-or-alcohol-related events – such as suicide or preventable accidents – might have been avoided if alcohol and drug rehab had been factored into the equation.
The good news for aging rockers – especially for Europeans, says the report – is that after 25 years, death rates began to return to normal. A European star still living 25 years after achieving fame had a similar mortality rate as the European public. But American artists remained more susceptible to cancer, heart disease and other conditions associated with the stress of fame and living in the fast lane. Apparently such activities as performing in later years in nostalgic and reunion tours or stressing about one's fading glory takes a greater toll on U.S. musicians, who continue to die in greater numbers.
We've read in biographies and articles that most older rock stars who survived their hard-living rock ‘n’ roll youth have learned that alcohol, drugs and unhealthy life styles are actually destructive to art and music.
For today's younger artists, and for wannabe rock stars and their parents and friends, the answer is pretty simple. Do like the survivors out there who are still creating great music, still in good health, and still living rich, full lives. They’ve learned to relax and put the music first. And when it comes to drugs and alcohol, take a tip from so many of them who say they’re still alive and kicking because, when the chips were down and it really counted, they reached for a successful alcohol and drug rehab program.
By: Rod Mactaggart
A new research report from an English university charted the lives of 1,050 American and European pop music artists from 1965 to 2005, and found they are two to three times more likely to die young than the general population. In all, 100 stars died "too young" between 1956 and 2005, amounting to almost ten percent of famous male rockers and more than seven percent of famous female rockers. And according to the report, published in Britain's Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health this week, a quarter of all the musician's deaths were due to alcohol or drug abuse – lives that might have been saved if the artists had reached for drug rehab instead of for more booze and drugs.
The remainder of the early deaths were attributed to high levels of stress, depression and risk-taking behavior, which led to a wide variety of fatal events from accidents to diseases to suicides. American rock stars died at an average age of 42, while European stars averaged even younger deaths at 35. The report doesn't say, and it probably can never be known, how many of these apparent non-drug-or-alcohol-related events – such as suicide or preventable accidents – might have been avoided if alcohol and drug rehab had been factored into the equation.
The good news for aging rockers – especially for Europeans, says the report – is that after 25 years, death rates began to return to normal. A European star still living 25 years after achieving fame had a similar mortality rate as the European public. But American artists remained more susceptible to cancer, heart disease and other conditions associated with the stress of fame and living in the fast lane. Apparently such activities as performing in later years in nostalgic and reunion tours or stressing about one's fading glory takes a greater toll on U.S. musicians, who continue to die in greater numbers.
We've read in biographies and articles that most older rock stars who survived their hard-living rock ‘n’ roll youth have learned that alcohol, drugs and unhealthy life styles are actually destructive to art and music.
For today's younger artists, and for wannabe rock stars and their parents and friends, the answer is pretty simple. Do like the survivors out there who are still creating great music, still in good health, and still living rich, full lives. They’ve learned to relax and put the music first. And when it comes to drugs and alcohol, take a tip from so many of them who say they’re still alive and kicking because, when the chips were down and it really counted, they reached for a successful alcohol and drug rehab program.
By: Rod Mactaggart
Syd Barret – The Death of a Music Legend
In August 2006 a sixty year old, bald, stocky bachelor with a face at once stern and sensitive died of diabetes. He was living on his own in his home-town: the genteel city of Cambridge, England, world widely known for its university, which, in the UK, is rivaled only by the equally venerable one in Oxford. His name was Syd Barret. Or was it? No. His name was Roger Keith Barret, known as Rog to the few people he bothered to see, mostly his family. Syd Barrett is the name the world will remember him by.He was a living legend. Now he is a dead legend.
Let me outline the birth of this legend in a few words. Do you know the magnolia? What makes its beauty so special is not only its features, but also that it blooms very early, and very short. In those seminal years of pop/rock music, the mid sixties, Barrett’s songs and music shared the same properties. As founding father and undisputed leader of a band called Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett was a pivotal figure in the emerging psychedelic scene in London, and, via his records, the rest of the world.
It was a time when the world, in the words of Keith Richards, suddenly turned from black and white into Technicolor. And Syd Barrett was a most colourful being indeed, to the ear, to the eye and to the mind in equal measures. Brought up quite liberally, with well to do parents, and a particularly doting mother, young Syd was as gifted as he was attractive, and a humorous, impish fellow at that. Experimenting with a few things almost no one had heard of in these days, like LSD –until the sixties mainly used by the CIA as sort of a truth serum drug- and the ancient Chinese Book of Changes, the I Ching, his main occupations were painting and music. Painting came first, the music and songs that would make him famous came second in those early days.
In the music industry many things had changed in the slipstream of the Beatles fame. Musicians were no longer puppets on a string of shady, cynically-minded Tin Pan Alley-types, churning out product for whoever laid the money down. There was a new playfulness and originality in the music of the Beatles and also a completely un-self-conscious integrity, mainly brought about by the fact that the Beatles wrote their own songs, and became a role model for that. It was the Kennedy era. People were in some ways starting to be encouraged by the authorities to think for themselves and not to do simply what the same authorities expected them to do, which, of course, implies a paradox with a vengeance, but, lucky for those times, it took a while for us all to realize.
Back to our story. So the Beatle phenomenon became a trailblazer for a whole gamut of gifted young bands, all into writing their own material: The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, and The Who, who does not know their names.
Barrett’s Pink Floyd rose to fame a few years after the first batch of post Beatles bands. And in those heady days a few years made an enormous difference. Swinging London was already turning psychedelic and of that era Barrett was, is, and always will be one of the finest relics. It all went by so fast…
Syd Barrett was an almost devout non-believer in discipline, and had a frame of mind and body not heavy duty enough for the rough life of a rock star. Within two blasting years his behavior had become so erratic that he could not rationally function anymore in the band that was his brainchild. Forgetting guitars everywhere, sometimes refusing to speak to anyone, standing on stage like a statue, playing just one chord. R
Roger Waters, Rick Wright and Nick Mason had to incorporate guitarist David Gilmour, a good friend of the whole band, and already a highly rated session player. A short while the band was a five some, David Gilmour delivering the sonic good, and Syd Barrett as a sort of far-out ornament. Then the idea was that he would be the home staying genius, with the other boys on the road a la Brian Wilson, but it all expired, Syd being so deranged that he temporarily became an inmate of the Terrapin Asylum, after which followed a few years in London, living in various trippy bohemian settings.
During that time he did manage to create two albums that are still enjoyed by quite a few good ears: "The Madcap Laughs" and "Barrett’s" quirky, very asymmetrical songs with strangely evocative lyrics about almost nothing/everything, after which he stopped making music altogether. He ended up where he started, in Cambridge, living with his mother, and after her death on his own, picking up painting again and writing a history of art for his own enjoyment, without the slightest idea to let others read it, let alone publicize it.
All his life he had the status of a cult hero, also because his old band, Pink Floyd, became hugely successful in the line-up with David Gilmour, and the standard bearers of, let’s say, adult rock: always competent, creative, even poetic, skilfully performed on state of the art hardware, but with the elusive x-factor, which makes things creep under your skin, considerably reduced.
A short career and a long retirement. He regained his inner balance sufficiently to live as a quiet, withdrawn, strange but not crazy citizen, sustained by the royalties of his compositions on Pink Floyd’s and his own records. According to his family he could even be said to live with his very own brand of satisfaction. Syd Barrett will always be remembered as one of the most enigmatic characters in the pantheon of modern Western popular music.
By: Harry Rackers
Let me outline the birth of this legend in a few words. Do you know the magnolia? What makes its beauty so special is not only its features, but also that it blooms very early, and very short. In those seminal years of pop/rock music, the mid sixties, Barrett’s songs and music shared the same properties. As founding father and undisputed leader of a band called Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett was a pivotal figure in the emerging psychedelic scene in London, and, via his records, the rest of the world.
It was a time when the world, in the words of Keith Richards, suddenly turned from black and white into Technicolor. And Syd Barrett was a most colourful being indeed, to the ear, to the eye and to the mind in equal measures. Brought up quite liberally, with well to do parents, and a particularly doting mother, young Syd was as gifted as he was attractive, and a humorous, impish fellow at that. Experimenting with a few things almost no one had heard of in these days, like LSD –until the sixties mainly used by the CIA as sort of a truth serum drug- and the ancient Chinese Book of Changes, the I Ching, his main occupations were painting and music. Painting came first, the music and songs that would make him famous came second in those early days.
In the music industry many things had changed in the slipstream of the Beatles fame. Musicians were no longer puppets on a string of shady, cynically-minded Tin Pan Alley-types, churning out product for whoever laid the money down. There was a new playfulness and originality in the music of the Beatles and also a completely un-self-conscious integrity, mainly brought about by the fact that the Beatles wrote their own songs, and became a role model for that. It was the Kennedy era. People were in some ways starting to be encouraged by the authorities to think for themselves and not to do simply what the same authorities expected them to do, which, of course, implies a paradox with a vengeance, but, lucky for those times, it took a while for us all to realize.
Back to our story. So the Beatle phenomenon became a trailblazer for a whole gamut of gifted young bands, all into writing their own material: The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, and The Who, who does not know their names.
Barrett’s Pink Floyd rose to fame a few years after the first batch of post Beatles bands. And in those heady days a few years made an enormous difference. Swinging London was already turning psychedelic and of that era Barrett was, is, and always will be one of the finest relics. It all went by so fast…
Syd Barrett was an almost devout non-believer in discipline, and had a frame of mind and body not heavy duty enough for the rough life of a rock star. Within two blasting years his behavior had become so erratic that he could not rationally function anymore in the band that was his brainchild. Forgetting guitars everywhere, sometimes refusing to speak to anyone, standing on stage like a statue, playing just one chord. R
Roger Waters, Rick Wright and Nick Mason had to incorporate guitarist David Gilmour, a good friend of the whole band, and already a highly rated session player. A short while the band was a five some, David Gilmour delivering the sonic good, and Syd Barrett as a sort of far-out ornament. Then the idea was that he would be the home staying genius, with the other boys on the road a la Brian Wilson, but it all expired, Syd being so deranged that he temporarily became an inmate of the Terrapin Asylum, after which followed a few years in London, living in various trippy bohemian settings.
During that time he did manage to create two albums that are still enjoyed by quite a few good ears: "The Madcap Laughs" and "Barrett’s" quirky, very asymmetrical songs with strangely evocative lyrics about almost nothing/everything, after which he stopped making music altogether. He ended up where he started, in Cambridge, living with his mother, and after her death on his own, picking up painting again and writing a history of art for his own enjoyment, without the slightest idea to let others read it, let alone publicize it.
All his life he had the status of a cult hero, also because his old band, Pink Floyd, became hugely successful in the line-up with David Gilmour, and the standard bearers of, let’s say, adult rock: always competent, creative, even poetic, skilfully performed on state of the art hardware, but with the elusive x-factor, which makes things creep under your skin, considerably reduced.
A short career and a long retirement. He regained his inner balance sufficiently to live as a quiet, withdrawn, strange but not crazy citizen, sustained by the royalties of his compositions on Pink Floyd’s and his own records. According to his family he could even be said to live with his very own brand of satisfaction. Syd Barrett will always be remembered as one of the most enigmatic characters in the pantheon of modern Western popular music.
By: Harry Rackers
Bizarre Fantasy Rock
Rock music’s development was influenced by fantasy-fiction literature. As the result a fantasy rock trend emerged on the music scene. It mainly combines elements of metal and it’s subcultures, including heavy metal, black metal, pagan metal and others. The power–fantasy metal is peculiar of academic vocal, light guitar tunes and application of "fantasy" instruments as violin, and flute. Lyrics slightly remind medieval poems contending legends about dragons, primeval forests, gorgeous ladies and brave knights.
Criticisms claim that fantasy rock stars aims at combining two of modern society’s most debilitating obsessions-celebrity worship and fantasy sports-into one fabulous national pastime. Thus, in fantasy rock stars, instead of touchdowns or home runs, your drafted team of divas, punks and indie-rock sacred cows racks up points for boneheaded press quotes, sex scandals, unseemly cover songs, violent altercations and onstage mental breakdowns.
The trend was reputedly promoted by the "Hammerfall" and the "Blind Gvardian", however, experts claim the CD album "Gnomes, released by the Pink Floyd in 1967 was the first to introduce fantasy rock among rock fans. Led Zeppelin, Queen and David Bowie are among the bands to make numerous attempts to refer to the musical trend. The most dazzling fantasy-rock star of nowadays is considered the Jetro Tull. Their music combines rock, flute motive and fabulous-like lyrics.
Fantasy-rock was predicted to develop into a separate trend. While statement of listening to rock music in 1960s was to admit to your high style, a similar statement of devotion to metal in 1990s will lead to a confusion, as metal was divided into multiple subcultures.
Bands, playing genuine fantasy rock were repeatedly referring to Tolkin’s Lord of the Rings. There are different cases, however, for instance, the "She is my sin" CD of the Nightwish displayed different side of the fantasy metal, bitter tragic and complicated for understanding.
By: All The Lyrics
Criticisms claim that fantasy rock stars aims at combining two of modern society’s most debilitating obsessions-celebrity worship and fantasy sports-into one fabulous national pastime. Thus, in fantasy rock stars, instead of touchdowns or home runs, your drafted team of divas, punks and indie-rock sacred cows racks up points for boneheaded press quotes, sex scandals, unseemly cover songs, violent altercations and onstage mental breakdowns.
The trend was reputedly promoted by the "Hammerfall" and the "Blind Gvardian", however, experts claim the CD album "Gnomes, released by the Pink Floyd in 1967 was the first to introduce fantasy rock among rock fans. Led Zeppelin, Queen and David Bowie are among the bands to make numerous attempts to refer to the musical trend. The most dazzling fantasy-rock star of nowadays is considered the Jetro Tull. Their music combines rock, flute motive and fabulous-like lyrics.
Fantasy-rock was predicted to develop into a separate trend. While statement of listening to rock music in 1960s was to admit to your high style, a similar statement of devotion to metal in 1990s will lead to a confusion, as metal was divided into multiple subcultures.
Bands, playing genuine fantasy rock were repeatedly referring to Tolkin’s Lord of the Rings. There are different cases, however, for instance, the "She is my sin" CD of the Nightwish displayed different side of the fantasy metal, bitter tragic and complicated for understanding.
By: All The Lyrics
Rise of British Punk-Rock
Grunge–bands of 1960s and so-called pub-rock ensembles were labelled processors of the UK punk-rock. All these bands together with development of punk serve as a certain reaction on distribution of the stadium rock.
The pub-rock was a mid-1970s musical movement, increasingly, centred in London. Pub Rock was very much about live performances in small pubs and clubs. The trend was popularized by the bands, including the Brinsley Schwarz, the Bees Make Honey, the Ducks Deluxe, the Ace, the Kilburn and the Kokomo. The style appears to amalgamate tones of rhythm and blues, rockabilly and simply acoustics. Pub-rock bands aimed at conservation of old music styles, whereas punk bands employed themes, so much admired by their parents in early youth, mimicking it with negative aesthetics.
The trend is rumoured to be introduced by English impresario Malcolm McLaren, who was engaged in fashion at that time and owned a clothing shop Let It Rock in London. In 1974 he travelled to New York on a business trip and accidentally met members of the New York Dolls band, convincing them he could do a better job of managing and promoting them. The activity required a long stay in the US. After finally returning to the UK Malcolm McLaren decided to change his shop from the one, which sold 1950s cloths to the one which sold bondage and fetish clothes. Let it Rock was renamed for Sex and began attracting many of London’s disenfranchised youth, who were captured by rebellion nature of the shop.
Being surrounded by stylish young people, Malcolm McLaren began to manage the Strand band, later on renamed for the Sex Pistols – the short existing, however, potent UK band. It comprised Steve Jones(vocal), Paul Cook(drums), Glen Matlock(bass) and frontman John Rotten, being nicknamed so for poor condition of his teeth. He attracted McLaren’s attention by his ugly appearance. His pale face was completely covered with pimples, which, however, added to his punk image and made him popular idol of the punk fan-base.
By: All The Lyrics
The pub-rock was a mid-1970s musical movement, increasingly, centred in London. Pub Rock was very much about live performances in small pubs and clubs. The trend was popularized by the bands, including the Brinsley Schwarz, the Bees Make Honey, the Ducks Deluxe, the Ace, the Kilburn and the Kokomo. The style appears to amalgamate tones of rhythm and blues, rockabilly and simply acoustics. Pub-rock bands aimed at conservation of old music styles, whereas punk bands employed themes, so much admired by their parents in early youth, mimicking it with negative aesthetics.
The trend is rumoured to be introduced by English impresario Malcolm McLaren, who was engaged in fashion at that time and owned a clothing shop Let It Rock in London. In 1974 he travelled to New York on a business trip and accidentally met members of the New York Dolls band, convincing them he could do a better job of managing and promoting them. The activity required a long stay in the US. After finally returning to the UK Malcolm McLaren decided to change his shop from the one, which sold 1950s cloths to the one which sold bondage and fetish clothes. Let it Rock was renamed for Sex and began attracting many of London’s disenfranchised youth, who were captured by rebellion nature of the shop.
Being surrounded by stylish young people, Malcolm McLaren began to manage the Strand band, later on renamed for the Sex Pistols – the short existing, however, potent UK band. It comprised Steve Jones(vocal), Paul Cook(drums), Glen Matlock(bass) and frontman John Rotten, being nicknamed so for poor condition of his teeth. He attracted McLaren’s attention by his ugly appearance. His pale face was completely covered with pimples, which, however, added to his punk image and made him popular idol of the punk fan-base.
By: All The Lyrics
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