Week 1

09/14/2015

Lecture 1: What is popular music?

Dependent on the development of:
Folk: Makes music for their own entertainment, interested in
playing songs that traditions have passed on from generation to
generation
Art: Music (based off money) What do you need to make popular
music?
Industrial Revolution- Rapid development of industry that
occurred in Britain in late 18th and 19th centuries, brought about by
the introduction of machinery. It was characterized by the use of
steam power, growth of factories, and the mass production of
manufactured goods
Without industrial revolution, there is NO MUSIC
Changed western society in profound ways
Seizes a transition from trading and exchanging goods
from one thing for another
By the time industrial revolution ends, we exchange
other things such as MONEY and OBJECTS (Money represented objects),
wealth can be accumulated through saving

Money: Can be passed off to family, use it for future needs

Form a hierarchy (lower class people start to save
money, middle class spends money on things they DONT NEED)
Industrial revolution meant millions of people coming/living in city to
make/spend money
Large Urban Population
Pushes people from the country to the city (large urban
populations) From rural to urban (known as Rural to Urban Shift)
Cannot become rockstar if everyone lives in country, not much
popularity (not going to make a living)
o Easier to advertise/ communication between people
o Otherwise go from village to village (will not get famous)

Copyright laws
Music is an idea made real by being represented by different markings,
labels etc.
Representing on the marking, encoding grooves on a record,
magnetic readings on a disk
Paying for the ideas, ideas need protecting
Around mid 1500's due to the printing press
At this time, when books are hand printed, dont need to worry
about people pirating or torrenting your material without your
permission
o No technology to allow pirating material
Because of the printing press, piracy became an ISSUE
Overall creation of Printing press provoked pirating
Korea had the first printing press
Hot selling book, people can buy and print more copies to sell for
cheaper
Text was not under copyright laws (didnt exist until 1500s), there
were no issues before
Without copy right law, no one can make a living being a
musician
Industry of scale (Technologies of Mass Production and
Broadcasting)
To allow mass produce whatever our medium is e.g. Sheet music,
records, CD's, or digital distribution
Need technologies that will help project and distribute material
Broadcasting important through: Television, radio, and internet
All required for a music industry
Music By 1945:
End of the "big Bang" era

 Big bands had dominated music industry since mid

1930's
Wars all come to an end, WWII
Things heard on radio during end of WW2 consisted mostly of big band
era
What makes it possible, what makes it satisfying, what aspects of
society are needed to accomplish music
What bands wanted to accomplish to become successful in the
industry
Aspects of society: Who their target audience are
What music they would play to satisfy the need of listeners, how
band should make their music (types of instruments, etc.)
Consisted of a lot of jazz and blues music
How did music sound like in 1945

Example: "Sentimental Journey" (brown/homer/green, 1944) Song Writers Performed by Les brown and his band of renown,
featuring Doris Day (vocalist)

Swing: puts more focus on the song and the idea of dancing Big hit
in the 1945, song that American soldiers came home to
o pre-existing genre of music aka jazz)
Jazz: Was more about the solo performance
o Music was very popular during the war, especially when
veterans return back home

Why do we have HIT record, Why we have a music industry

Music industry divided into three distinct categories:
Popular (pop): white/ middle class/ urban
Race: black, regardless of class or location, Color of performer and
perceived audience
Hillbilly: Origins in poor, White, rural - is now migrating urban areas
(particularly the southern US)

Regional styles of Country and Western music

Country: Several music styles/ traced to the folk traditions of the
region, largely derived from folk music or British isles; "hillbilly
music"
Western: Open prairie of the cowboy (Hollywood)
Race: After WW1; popular music played by black magicians and
intended for black listening. Rhythm and blues reflected racial
reflected segregation in American culture (bass, drums, piano,
guitar, trumpets, trombones, and saxophones)
Do-Woop: Acapella groups; couldnt afford instruments
Hokum blues: Poked fun at various aspects of adult relationships;
sexual
Development of American Music Industry:
What creates the conditions for popular music to become a
consumer product?
Sheet music and recordings
After WW2 , recordings became very popular
1790's to 1830s - Amendments to the copyright law to cover sheet
music

US starts to pay attention to sheet music and copyright laws

Selling products and distributing
Pay attention to sheet music and copy right laws
Significant number of people trying to make a living as song writers

The Victorian Ballad

Minstrel show (blackface)
Variety show that depicted African-Americans in a racist and
stereotypical light
The product of white culture, songs written and performed by white
artists (white product of white culture)
Songs performed for whites

Songs writer performed by white musicians and singer

For white audiences
Performed in black face
Major source of newly composed songs

Parlor music (After the Ball)

Industrial revolution
Rise of middle class
Buying things that are unnecessary
Buying a car that is massive, then displaying it
Luxury items: piano - a symbol of wealth
Useless, large money purchases for the woman to learn
Girls spend their time learning how to play piano
Make woman in pictures doing nothing
1800's, make girls useless (having long painted fingernails,
means didnt do labor, wearing dresses, all show didnt work in
factories)

Last week
- industrial revolution
- pre-1800s
- emergence of pop music / songwriter as a profession

Parlor Music (Victorian era)

piano accompaniment
vocal control
themes: loyalty, honesty, control, restraint
Physical control, straight posture, still
Market: young middle class women
Demand for newly composed songs leads to increased organization of
the music industry
Tin Pan Alley silicon valley of music in NYC where
musicians came together
Center of professional music making
Sheet music dominates transition to recordings begins during the
1920s
Division of labor, specialization, Fordism
o Lyricists, publishers, composers, publicity, performers
Tin Pan Alley as a style: basic rhyme scheme, syllabic, idealized
romance
Easy to play, easy to sing phrasing and range
AABA musical form standard form
1892 Charles K Harris, After the Ball
Waltz, ball dancing
About the uncle talking to his nieces about the first love of his life
Sold 5,000,000 copies of sheet music (est.)
First hit song

How does Tin Pan Alley organize itself?

TAKES SHAPE AT HEIGHT OF INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
TPA is putting together ideas of how to do things
Henry Ford is figuring out how to make cars at the time Created
division of labour
Songs generally written/produced by several people (division of
labour)
Technology of recording becomes more important in 1920s
TPA creates archetype of pop music
Style: Lyrics
Basic rhythm scheme
Simple word rhymes
Syllabic (of, relating, to, or based on syllables)
Idealize romance - beginning and ending
Love with the most perfect person in the world, or loosing the most
important person in the world. The intense crazy parts of the
relationship
Style: Music
Easy to play
For amateur vocalists*
Easy to sing - moderate range
AABA musical form: TPA structure; actually melody and theme
Sing Melody, then sing contrasting melody, and then the original
melody comes back
Somewhere over the rainbow = AABA song
Amateur sings, dont have an accurate level of breathe control*
Film industry follows the music industry

1877- Edison Invents the phonograph

designed it as a recording device for businessmen
didn't catch on, secretaries threatened to go on strike
1892-1912 transition from cylinder to disk
1925 industry standard speed set to 78 rpm

What was recorded?

- sheet music/TPA
- black music / rural southern white music not recorded because
o cultural chauvinism unfounded belief that something is
inherently better, e.g. men are inherently superior to women in
every regard, South lost the war, city looking down at the
countryside
o rural areas bad sales

MARGINALIZED CULTURES CREATED AS A RESULT:

Commercial Radio 1920
Jan 1922- 28 Stations / December 1922- 570 stations
Controlled by only a few Networks (CBS, NBC, Mutual)

First radio network, NBC 1928

Very few independent radio stations exist
Network radio begins to changes patterns of consumption from
regional to national
Radio theater: murder mysteries, children programs
All the music performances are done live on radio
*Tesla said radio waves are useless
Success of radio:
Expensive one-time purchase, unlimited content
Why buy records?
Records on the verge of extinction
The Rise of the Record Industry
Ralph Peer
Okeh Records
A new song (TPA song) singer doesn't show up, Ralph goes out and
comes back with a young black lady (Mamie Smith), everyone was
startled, no one thought of recording a black artist
Crazy Blues 1920
o First significant recording by black artist
Market research in popular music, no one thought there was a black
market , small but measurable market
Introduction of Hillbilly
Carve that Possum 1927
Uncle Dave Mason and the Fruit Jar Drinkers
Classic instruments: fiddle, banjo, acoustic guitar

Introduction of Race
How Long Blues 1928
Carr and Blackwell
**1925 RECORD INDUSTRY STANDARDIZES ROTATION SPEED**
Robert Johnson, country music
WSM
Grand Old Opera, country western central, Nashville
TELEVISION
First demonstration 1927
Experimental and low-resolution broadcasts thru 1930s
Network broadcasts begin in 1939
1945 6 stations
1955 411 stations
major networks move to TV, making more money

people buying up radio licenses of abandoned radio companies

Memphis WDIA, national ad campaigns
o Found that majority of listeners are black
o 1948 changed to Black Appeal radio station with black
artists
o by 1954 200 BA stations on air, not only black audience,
small number of whites especially adolescence (Elvis)

o same thing is happening with Hillbilly Appeal

Post World War 2 Economic Boom in USA
Traditional family, consumer / luxury products abundance
Kids stay in school
Transistor radio
Gospel
Taking the performance style of Church, turning it into pop music
Ray Charles (1930-2004)
Georgia
Blind at age 7
Learns music in a school for blind
1952 Atlantic Records only significant record company that signed
black artists
success with white audiences heightened level of intensity
Chicago Electric Blues
Muddy Waters 1913-83, practicing country blues musician
Born in Mississippi
Played guitar, harmonica
Emulated Robert Johnson
Moves to Chicago 1940s
1946 records for Aristocrat Records (later becomes Chess Records)

Hoochie Coochie Man (1954, Willie Dixon)

Verse chorus, (modified 12 bar blues),
o verse: same music, different words;
o chorus: same music, same words, name-clue the song title,
may also feature increase in intensity
Stop time, punctuates the vocal, self-consciousness about making
unique music
Black Appeal captures the white teenagers, leads to moral panic.
Cover Versions (1954-56): doing a recording of someone elses
popular song
White versions of black records
Small number of white kids going to record store
Changing songs in a way to bring in a white audience
Causing MORAL PANIC
Little Richard (Richard Wayne Penniman)
Born 1952
First big hit was Tutti Frutti
Released late 1955 on Specialty Records (lyrics revised by Dorothy
LaBostrie)
Crossover hit : #2 R&B, #17 Pop
Pat Boone
Born 1934
Was just breaking as a pop star in 1955
Early 1956, releases a cover of Tutti Frutti

No success with black audiences, not R&B, successful with white

audiences, #10 on the pop chart

Country and Western (1948-49)

Texas, southern states, singing cowboys

Cover Versions Sh-Boom

The Chords: June 1954 / Cat Records
AABA format
Do-Whop style, blue song (black artist)
Vocables, higher range of sounds, more creative

Intro

Intri
d

Intri
d

Sax
Solo
(A)
16

A out

The Crew Cuts July 1954/ Mercury Records

More organized, better fit for white audiences, made the AABA
structure more clear, cleaner and tidier version, less jazzy

Intri
d

ShBoo
m
(A)
8

ShBoo
m
(A)
8

Intri
d

Tag

Form
Voice

The Chords
The Crew Cats
1x through AABA format 2x through AABA
with interludes
Distorted voices use of
lower octave in B,
sound closer in
distance, can hear
breathing

No use of lower octave,

Far away and much
more level-headed

Three rules to recording a cover song:

1. Give credit to original artist in distribution
2. If you make money from it, % goes to original artist
3. Cannot do anything that could demean the copyright

TEST CUT OFF

Record companies did what they did to make money
It had not occurred to them to sign a black artist and make money
Playing music with racist sensibilities to middle class whites
Racist? Or TPA traditions?
New style artists emerge in the 1960s ROCKNROLL
Both white and blacks performing
Mix of pop, C&W, R&B
Targeted at teenagers
The term attributed to Alan Freed
o Euphemism for a good time, sex
o Becomes an influential Disk Jockey in 1960s
Hasn't occurred that there are differences in culture based upon age
Teenagers see the world differently than their parents,
GENERATION GAP
Different experience in youth
Rocket 88 1958ish, first rocknroll song?? Google it
Bill Haley and the Comets
Born in 1925
o Teenagers liked the sound of rocknroll performed by people
close to their age
Originally BH and the saddlemen
o Country and western artist
Western swing
One of the first guys to notice the change in music
Changes to BH and comets in 1952
Early hits with Crazy Man, Crazy and Shake, Rattle and Roll
Rock Around the Clock (1954)
picks up in 1955

Blackboard Jungle
12 bar blues
became a hit after being used in the film:
Film Blackboard Jungle
o Film about a teacher who goes to work in an inter-city school
plagued by gang violence
o Propaganda against R&B music and black culture
Beginning and end of the success of Bill Haley

ELVIS PRESLEY (1935-77)

Born very poor, one of twins (35 min older brother died)
Loved Dean Martin, sings quietly with a rich voice
1953-18years old
Scotty Moore (guitar), Bill Black (bass) professional musicians
(guitars), coming in playing on records
o Sam Phillips / Sun records
o can see and understand black culture
o BB King
o Maryon Kesiker, Sams assistant if I could find a white man to
sing like a black person, Id make billions
o One of the most objective people still thinks a white person
should record C&W
Spring 1954
Trying country but not doing well, starts doing covers of songs he
grew up with
o That's Alright Mama rhythm and blues
o Sam knew right then it was a new style of music
July 1954 That's alright Mama/Blue Moon of Kentucky

o
o
o
o
Elvis
o

Sends record to a friend Duey Phillips, Duey interviewed him

Asked Elvis where he went to school
His performance style didn't sound white
White and black high school
sang other peoples music
Sang songs hes grown up with

Blue Moon of Kentucky AABA

Original performed by Bill Monroe, slow country song, 2 beat
pattern - most common bass pattern
Have several version of the song in early July of 1954
o Elvis records a Pop version from another planet
o Bill Black made two huge changes to the way he plays the
song walking bass line, refers to the fingers sliding across
o Slack base: more percussive drive in the music , let the string
snap against finger board to get the clack sound

Oct 5th
Post-war attitude, trying to forget the horrors of war
Style of music is changing, and Elvis is at the center of change
Blue Moon of Kentucky is about loss and heartbreak
o AABA structure
o When he goes to the B sections he smears half of them out,
sliding up and down, sounds a lot like AFRICAN-AMERICAN
o From cultural perspective Elvis performed like that on purpose

 Emotional distance- don't let the sadness of the song overwhelm

you
From the sound of his voice, hes celebrating, making everyone
happy through his voice, adds extra syllables to the words
o PERCUSSIVE TEMBERS sharp articulation
o Stylizing the song, creating his own structure
1954-55 Elvis on Sun Records
becomes a regional star, regional hits in Memphis
12 songs all covers of his favorite songs, R&B or C&W
o drags into the middle where all the sounds mix
By end of October 1954 adds a drummer to his lineup
o DJ Fontana, ELVIS, Scotty Moore
Rockabilly The Hillbilly Cat
o Fusing Rock and Hillbilly (C&W) , black and white
o Cat was a contemporary term in black culture, hip, cool
End of 1955 his songs begin to chart
Sam Phillips sells Elvis to RCA for $35,000
kings ransom, huge amount of money
money helped to kick start Johnny Cashs career, Roy Ortison
in order to make major success in entertainment, you had to have a
million copies available in every store, wide release, on the same
night
1956 Colonel (honorary) Tom Parker (THE FLIPPED COLLAR
ELVIS)
new manager for Elvis
perfect man to take over his career

 uses a relatively new technology TV

gets Elvis on national television 11 times
40-60million people watching him, comparable to super bowl or
Olympics
significant drop in crime rates during his performances
SPRING
Hearbreak Hotel
#1 Pop, #1 Country, #5 R&B
August December 56
Hound Dog (first song to get #1 on all charts, unparalleled success)
Accelerates the moral panic to a whole another level
Performed the song on major primetime Variety show
o Milton Berle Show, he said: put the guitar down, let the
people see you move
o Stops the song at the end and stops the band and counts
back in at slow tempo, everyone goes CRAZY
SIDENOTE: homosexuality was gay, therefore if reverse happened it
would have caused a worse moral panic
He was threatened with advertisers, actual commercials done
against him, legislations tried to be passed against his performance
within state bounds
People were scared that when the camera panned to white teenage
girls in the audience going crazy over overt black sexuality that
Elvis was portraying
Portrayed as a loss of control, sexually charged
Steve Allen Show 2 weeks later
o Colonel Tom says hes on the verge of losing the money
making audience
o Dressed in a tux, out of his element, looks uncomfortable
1957
Elvis lost his black audience
Has become less controversial, more appropriate for white audience

 Elvis spends the rest of his career being popular, ends his career as
a trailblazer
1958
Elvis enlisted in the mandatory US military service (at the time)
Sent to Germany, beginning of Cold War, the soldiers remain in
Europe as security from the Soviet Union
1961- ELVIS LAST CONCERT for a while
starts making bad films after the army
1968 Comeback Special
back and forth dialogue between actors and comedians, dreadful
and boring
midway through comes out in the black leather suit
starts doing old hits, only time he looks like hes having fun
1970-77 LAS VEGAS ELVIS
start of Elvis downfall
begins to abuse drugs, becomes insulated, gains weight, starts to
look very unhealthy
1977 AUGUST 16TH ELVIS DIES age 42, found on bathroom floor,
heart failure, overdose on prescription pills

CHUCK

BERRY
Black man who sang like a white man
Chuck is always with a guitar, electric guitar, plays solos
Chuck is born in the Midwest, St. Louis

His father was a carpenter, middle class home

He was completely deliberate, very self-conscious with what he did
alike Elvis who just took advantage of opportunity, had an instinct,
went for it in the moment
Chuck decided he wanted to be really wealthy
Realizes hes not gonna make a lot of money playing R&B
Needs to get on the pop chart
Gets into a lot of music competitions (Jackson 5!)
o Came out playing C&W thinner and lighter guitar with a
higher voice compare to the base guitar heavy R&B
o Starts to win competitions and get a lot of attention
1955
Chess Records
Chuck had a few chances to record but they all want him to record
R&B
Chess brothers try and get him to do the same thing, change the
song don't cover it, change the lyrics, make it your own, wont
infringe on copyright
Finds a makeup bag in the changing room titled Maybellene
o FIRST BIG HIT, launches his RockNRoll career
o Lots and lots of words, changes the accent to Southern
Chuck is in the Eastern market, bigger, (Chicago)
o Writing music specifically for young people, teenagers
Themes:
o Cars first generation where the car is a widespread
commodity, normal good
o Girls romance, value of the girlfriend for the target
audience, objectifying women
o No school idea of school as a prison, resonates with the
teenager
o Celebrating the music itself simply having it carries a
message
Chuck puts it all together, deliberately writing for young white
audience

Few cover versions of Berrys songs why?

Leaves the stuff out that would upset the parents
Centrality of the electric guitar; alike Elvis - most revolutionary
performances are without the guitar
Unlike artists such as Little Richard, Berry had little in his
performance or music that was viewed as threat to society
Johnny B Goode (1958) #2 R&B / #8 Pop - Chess Records
12 Bar Blues
text heavy narrative
Chuck figures out that white people like hearing lots of words and
very clearly; White elements:
o Clear enunciation
o Country / guitar sound
o Text heavy narrative
Black elements:
Blues chord structure
Added 6th (boogie woogie)
Call and response between voice and guitar
Guitar solo is structures on timbre and rhythm
Sound becomes more muffled from the string becoming
shorter
Chuck uses it as part of his solo
Sheet music solo is boring and structured
He takes advantage of the fact that you can play the
same note on different songs, subtle changes and
smoother, same pitch, more motion and energy
**Chuck Berrys favorite song was My Ding A Ling**

the most financially successful

Listening to Nat Cole prompted me to sing sentimental songs with

distinct diction. The songs of Muddy Waters impelled me to deliver the
down-home blues in the language they came from. When I played hillbilly
songs, I stressed my diction so that it was harder and whiter. All in all, it
was my intention to hold both the black and the white clientele by voicing
the different kinds of songs in their customary tongues Chuck Berry
THE GOLDEN AGE OF ROCKNROLL (1954-1959)
1954 Elvis starts recording, within a year of CB, Little Richards
first recording
posed a key problem: Rocknroll doesn't follow the division of labor
system
threatens to put many people out of work in a system that has been
around for decades
Corruption Payola:
Majors implicitly link race with the quality of the music
Rocknroll is attacked on the grounds that it is inferior music
(inferior = black influenced)
Try to discredit the industry, say that the artists are hacks
Came up with something called PAYOLA aka Bribery
o Bribing DJs to get more airplay
o Started all the way back in TPA, 1920s, threats from
gangsters, blackmail
Alan Freed DJ in a major station, supported independent black
artists, became a major target of the hearings
o Was accused of taking bribes to play Rocknroll records, and
he was but so was everyone else
o Ended up being fired from his job, was blacklisted couldn't get
a job anywhere else, the IRS hounded him for bad taxes,
drove him into poverty, died from being sick and unable to
afford healthcare
Major Payola hearings, how can the music be played on the air if its
so bad? They must be getting bribed

 1954- worth $200 million 1959 worth $600 million

Pop top 10: 1955 15% are RnR 1959 42% are RnR
Independent record label share of the total music industry: 1955 21%
1959 66%
Racism:
Reaction against the perceived integration of youth
Birth of RockNRoll coincides with emergence of Civil Rights
Movement
o May 1954 Brown vs. The board of education
o Ruled that public schools can no longer be segregated, before
used to be quoted as separate but equal, but white schools
better supported and better funded by far
Rosa Parks got on the bus December 1955 Montgomery, Alabama
bus boycott
Sign on bus: colored at the back
Bypassed the sign and sits in her space
White man comes on and asks for the seat shes in
Guy starts yelling at her but she wont move
Bus driver pulls over and moves the sign to her seat
Police pulled up
Aftermath: no one rode the bus in a community where the bus is
central to transport, plus the blacks rode the bus the most, brought
national attention, took a year
FREEDOM RIDERS / LUNCH COUNTER SIT-Ins
o Wait for the stores to open, well-dressed black students come
in to the store where only whites are served, sit-in all day, do
work there and leave at the end
Non-violent protests, all over USA and also Canada
Group of black people would take buses over state lines, police
would stop them throw them off the bus and beat them, but they
wouldn't fight back non-violent
RISE OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

o At the helm of the civil rights movement

o Dislike of RnR is linked to middle-class white fears regarding
the growing strength of the Civil Rights movement
The Great Extinction
The meteor that hits the earth killing all the rockstars
Elvis goes to army in 58, once he comes back he is never again the
ground-breaking trailblazer of RnR
Chuck Berry arrested in 59 under the Mann Act from 1800s
o Takes a teenager to work as a coat checker in the club,
daughter of a good friend
o Drives her across the river (state-line), the lady was white
(native American)
o Accused of breaking the law to protect white women from
being sold into prostitution
Jerry Lee Lewis May 58 marriage to 13 year old cousin becomes
public, southern yokel, comes from a community where it wasn't
uncommon, damaged his career took the momentum out
Little Richard (Tutti Frutti) extremist Christian biblical literalist
background, was disowned by his family, he had a deep personal
sense of faith, realized he was doing the Devils work, he was also
bisexual, profound conflict with his religion 1957 gives up his
career, goes back to school, becomes a church minister
Buddy Holly learned about RnR by listening to records and
appropriating the style (Peggy Sue??) was on tour, wasn't feeling
well, decided to fly ahead in a small plane with 2 artists on the tour
with him including latino Richie Valens and Big Bopper (JP
Richardson), plane crashed in Feb 1959
The In-Between years (1959-63)
The end of the Golden Age
New type of RockNRoll aimed at teenagers of the late 1950s early
1960s
Dance Craze
Songs called the Twist, Mashed Potatoe
The Locomotion Little Eva (Goffin, King) 1962
o in eyes of the record label, she was disposable
o just a face for the cover
o career was over before she was in her early 20s, died with the
dance craze
TPA pop music approach, specialization moves into RnR

o Songs are written specifically for the new teen demographic.

Romantic (non-sexualized) love and dancing
o Most of the newer artists did not write songs where were
they coming from
o Many came from the Brill Building
Don Kirshaner/Al Nevis Aldon Music
The Rise of the Producer
Before a producer was someone who supervises the recording of
the song, prepares the equipment
Entirely in preparing, when recording begins producer is done his
job
The job changes significantly
Goes back to the story of the Magnetophon (WW2)
o Jack Mullin: Sergeant in US army, discovers a magnetophon
in Nazi Germany at end of WW2
o MAGNETOPHON = first high quality reel-to-reel tape recorder
o scoops one up brings it back to the states
o **Germany would have won if it wasn't for the US**
o Nobody in the US knew how to get it to work, Germans
figured out how to formulate the tape, to make the sound
quieter
1947 Jack demonstrates to Bing Crosby
had a radio show, loved doing it but it was hard to put it together
every time
loved tech, always looked for new ways
when Jack demonstrates it to him, he realizes he can record all of
his shows
better than the record, you can pause and resume, with record cant
stop, plus radio station wouldn't let him do it
the only noise tape recorder had is the slight static, almost
indistinguishable from real live recording
first pre-recorded shows
Bing is so excited by this, he invests into the founding of AMPEX
tape company

o Inexpensive, mass-produced tape recorders lower the cost of

operating a recording studio
o Leads to a boom in independent record companies, which in
turn is part of what makes the golden age of RNR possible
o Cost of recording drops tremendously, makes independent
record companies much more profitable, which is how the
golden age kicks off
1948 Bing gives one of the first commercial reel-to-reel tape
recorders to LES PAUL (1915-2009)
Les Paul previously he had given up recording because he hated the
sound of the guitar and quality of recording
At times the guitar which is hollow and creates an echo, that drove
him crazy
Les Paul needs the string to vibrate and resonate, when the guitar
is hollow its not possible
Makes a guitar out of a railroad log, dense piece of wood
Jazz, pop, country
1941 the Log
Invents a SOLID BODY ELECTRIC GUITAR
o 1952 Gibson Les Paul guitar
Wishes to create recordings by layering performances, layering
instruments one after the other
Create a compilation of instruments not played at the same time
Assists in the development of multi-track tape recorder
o Multi-track recording redefines the process of
recording.
o Reproduction to production.
EXAMPLE: Sitting on Top of The World Les Paul with Mary Ford, 1953
Old TPA song
Early multi-track song
The performance never took place
Musical Photoshop

Its not a re-production, it's a production in itself, combined

recordings from different times into one

Although Les Paul begins using the multitrack, its still a novelty. Not until
later the industry begins using it.
During the in-between years, it becomes standard practice
Phil Spector
Rarely played the recordings he made, wasn't a singer, overseer,
producer
Closely associated
Used multi-track recording to develop a specific style
Brought attention to the fact that he was doing MT recording
Became known as the Wall of sound
Jamming the room with as many musicians as you can
2 drummers, 6 guitars, 3-4 piano players, etc.
empty the room, and bring in another band
layer the music from various bands before the singing
Example: Be my Baby The Ronettes, 1963, (Barry, Greenwich,
Spector)

The Age of the Teen Idol

Clean-cut image, idealized boyfriend no bad boy image from the
Golden Age
Had to be utterly non-threatening
A lot of Bobbys

Bobby Vinton Blue Velvet (1963)

composed in 1950
hit for Tony Bennett in 1951
pure, clean sound, everything worked out
Dick Clark (American Bandstand)
The guy at times square hosting new years eve
By 1957, weekly audience of the show is 20 million
Socially acceptable behavior
Much of the music is being produced by a new generation of TPA
style songwriters
After the music stops Dick comes out and picks a couple to
interview, almost always white, very well dressed, conservative and
formal
The kids were articulating the socially acceptable social standards of
their parents, girls become wives, boys go to college
They speak like little grown ups
The music is not corrupting the moral fiber of the youth, its not
dangerous, unlike the music of the Golden Age
This is how major record labels fought back against indie golden
age labels

THE FOLK REVIVAL

Many of the teen fans of the golde age of RNR are now in their early
20s
Now in university, many are looking for music that is more serious
Folk music:
Traditional music that is seen as something very authentic, very
self-conscious style, not a professional, recording and money
making style
Now made by professionals. Paradox
Has been around for most of 20th century, was most popular at the
beginning of the century

Before WW2 folk music was highly political, leftist

Woody Guthrie
His Guitar said This machine kills Fascists
Guitar is technically a machine, describes it as that rather than an
instrument
Alludes to being one of the hard workers
This Land is Your Land (woody Guthrie, 1940)
prominent acoustic guitar, the Banjo, harmonica
the solo: harmonica plays the melody of the song, no virtuous
talent showcase
trying to not look like big professionals
however, the performances show otherwise, great singers, precise
music
Lyric content:
o The land belongs to all of us
o Our job is to look after it and pass it on better than we got it
o Very leftist viewpoint
Song becomes blacklisted in 1953 because of left-wing connection
HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) McCarthyism,
1947-56
If u were suspected of communism, you were called up before the
senator McCarthy, he would ask you are you now, or have you ever
been a member of the communist party?
If u said no, you wouldn't be trusted, threatened with jail time,
fines, career blacklisted, house burned down, life ruined, many
committed suicide
If u said yes, you make up a story about meeting someone that you
had no idea is a communist, give some names and you were let go
with a warning
Particular areas that were focused on were the Army, Entertainment
business (Hollywood) and the Music industry
THEREFORE no one wanted to come near Folk Music because of Folk
music being targeted as communist

END OF 1950s/early 60s

First wave of baby-boomers reaches college
Interest in serious music
Rediscovering Folk music
The Kingston Trio / Peter Paul and Mary
o Similar to earlier music but more produced smoother
sounding, more arranged
Tom Dooley (1959) The Kingston Trio
o Polished very clean production sound, background vocals,
instruments
o Music made for RNR fans and Folk
o the original sound of Folk is carried by a new generation of
singer-songwriters
BOB DYLAN (1961-1965 Traditional Folk Music)
Woody Guthrie was his idol
Played a lot of work songs, labor unions, history
Also singing about current events
One of the concerns was the Civil Rights Movement
o Wrote them in a way they would fit into older folk music
standards
Hard Rains Gonna Fall (1963)
Very simple song, very simple melody
What is the song about? We are going to kill the world
Hard rain = warheads
Talking about the nuclear war Cuban Missile Crisis

o October 1962 both USSR and USA have Mutually Assured

Destruction
o USA made a tactical error, placed missiles in Turkey, USSR
spies found out
o USSR had missiles in Cuba, so if USA tries anything funny,
USSR can destroy USA in 6 minutes
o JFK orders a blockade of US Navy around Cuba
o Suspicious Soviet fishing ships incoming to Cuba, USA
warns them to turn around or they will be sunk, all turn
around except one
o Game of Chicken, will the US fire to start WW3? Nope. The
USSR ship is ordered to turn around
SURF MUSIC
The spirit of the Golden Age continues here, West Coast
Culturally, California is alike New York, Chicago, Northern East
musically
Middle class
West Coast prosperity, most noticeable in the music industry
Rich teenager leisure music surfing is an expensive and time
consuming hobby, have access to a car (luxury) to carry the large
board and lots of spare time
Strong focus on bands but also focus on the instrument
particularly the Solid Body electric guitar
Remember Les Paul? Gibson wants to take the solid body guitar out
of production, its had its peak
Period of significant amount of instrumental tracks
THE BEACH BOYS (Started as Pendletones)
May 1963- Surfin in USA (reminiscent of Chuck Berry)
Brian Wilson Creative force
o Electric bass guitar has been around for a while, but during
in-between years, electric bass takes over from double bass
o Brains of the band, high voice in the vocals
o Main songwriter, very skilled composer and arranger
o Spent time at Phil Specters studio learning from him
o Biggest inspiration of the band

o Mental illness: shy, withdrawn in interviews, became reclusive

when the band went on tour, withdrew to work on records,
rarely went out in public
Chuck Berry sued them and received credit when he won the
lawsuit
The best and most characteristic surf band
Couldve been bigger but because of Brian Wilsons mental issues
didn't peak for as long
Sounded old fashioned and nave by the end of the 1970s
MIDTERM 2 CUT OFF
Decline in popularity through the 1960s
Zero growth, the least profit
Brian Wilsons mental illness
Changes in approach to popular music
The British Invasion
U.S. in early 60s
Optimism with JFK
Elected in 1960s, very young, brought a sense of serious change
Catholic, as much of an unexpected outsider as Obama, radical
choice
Resonated sympathy with the young, optimistic
White house referred to as Camelot castle with a round table,
there is no one in charge, all are equals, man of the people, more
voices and ideas would be heard
Ask what not what your country can do for you, but what you can
do for your country
Tried to get the Space Program, landing a man on the Moon
Assassination: tour in Dallas, Texas, was a democratic state back
then, its cold but he decides to ride in a convertible, thousands of
people come out to cheer him on, shot in the head
Effect on the public: comparable to 9/11 in terms of shock

Martin Luther King, Civil Rights

August 1963 Washington; I have a dream
February, 1964 The Beatles arrive in New York
Captures the American public attention
The nation is looking for something to enjoy, something optimistic
POSTWAR BRITAIN
In USA economic prosperity brought about by the industrial boom
England has been devastated, urban centers have been bombed,
rail and industrial systems destroyed by bombings
Massive amounts of food rationing still going on, good that are hard
to get at the time
shortages of jobs because infrastructure destroyed
high unemployment
Entertainment industry was rebuilding, no tours or concerts
because people cant afford him
When urban culture comes under stress, when you don't have
access to previously granted goods or services, DIY culture takes
over, create their own
Emergence of Skiffle
o Essentially a group of guys getting together for a band
o Largely used acoustic guitars and sometimes parts of a drum
kit
Supplies and people coming to help Britain from USA
Black Market emerges, sailors and military staff would bring various
goods to trade on the English black market e.g. chocolate,
American cigarettes, nylon stockings, American records
RockNRoll among the most popular styles
BEATLES FORMATION
July 1957 The Quarrymen (Liverpool Skiffle band)

John Lennon, Paul McCartney (Vocal and Guitar)

Began to write songs in their mid teens, real passion for American
RNR
Passionate about song writing, would get up early and write all day
Covering RNR records but they couldn't do guitar solos
February 1958 George Harrison (Lead Guitar) still 15 years old
Paul met him on top of double decker bus in Liverpool
Joins the band after Paul invites him to play
3 of them could learn songs well, very good at being backup band
January 1960 Stuart Sutcliffe (Bass)
A painter, good friend of John
Not really a good bass player
August 1960 The Beatles
Go through a few name changes
Alan Freed influence: were once called Johnny and the Moon Dogs
They liked the name buddy and the Crickets, liked the sound the
insect made
Went from Long Johnny and Silver Beetles to BEATLES
August 1960 Pete Best (drums)
Went to Germany, Hamburg
ELVIS PRESLEY is in Germany, with thousands of American soldiers
standby for WW3
Costs too much to get American bands over to Germany
Beatles spent a lot of time playing for Americans in German
nightclubs
Have a ROCKER image English interpretation of American
motorcycle gangs, greased hair, leather jackets
When there is economic turmoil, gang violence rises, young people
tend to join more in these times
July 1961 Return to Liverpool

The Cavern Club

Stuart leaves the band becomes painter, Paul becomes new bass
players
Stuart dies from brain hemorrhage a year later, from getting into
fights
December 1961 Brian Epstein
Beatles werent recording their own stuff yet, backup band
Covered a record by Tony Sheridan became a hit with Liverpool
fans back in the Cavern Club, went looking for Beatles record
Brian didn't like them, they were smoking, spitting, drinking but he
saw something in them, a certain charisma
He approached them and told them to drop the Biker act, the rude
behavior
Keep the charisma and the humor
Leather jackets are out, the matching suits with clean and hip
haircuts are in
June 1962 Parlophone small division of EMI Record label
Deca Record label says there is little future in guitar music, (the In
between years), didn't want to sign the Beatles
Brian eventually approaches George Martin
Thought they were alright but rough around the edges
Yet he saw the spark in the band
One change (history around this is hazy) George said he will sign
the band, but the drummer isnt good enough so they need to drop
him
PETE BEST is dropped, enter Ringo Starr
o Why did they turn their back on Pete Best so quickly? Foggy,
some say they wanted to get rid of Pete anyway, particularly
John
o Pete did not partake in drugs and drinking, got the girls John
couldn't get
September 1962 Love me Do
Ringo didn't play in the recording, got into a fight with George
because he was late

Review:
Looked at Beatles formation

 First few singles in England

End of 1962
Bumped into BRIAN EPSTEIN, refurbishes them
From leather jackets to sharp suits
Opened up opportunities
George Martin
o Wrote comedy albums
o (NOT ON EXAM) The Goons, heroes of Monty Pythons circus

January 1963 Please Please Me

First single featuring all 4 Beatles
Hook something to get stuck in your mind
AABA Form
o Shows the intuitive way pop songs are created
Numerous rehearsed details
Change in rhythmic density in vocal
Highest note at the end of the B section
o Save the greatest tension for the B section
TPA style attention to arrangement
They don't just play the piece, every break has been worked out

Thru 1963 become the most popular band in Great Britain

November 1963: Royal Variety performance, big charity concert
by the royal family
For the biggest and the best

Show mischievous sense of humor

When asked if Ringo was the best drummer, John said hes not even
the best drummer on the Beatles. Ha.
20 million viewers
End of 1963
o Economic recovery is on the way
o Still behind compare to US prosperity
o Big question: how to conquer America?

I Wanna Hold your Hand 1964

So huge and mythical there is a lot of debate on what actually
happened but:
o Brian Epstein made a decision: we should not go to America
until we have a hit song in America
When the song hit the charts in USA, Beatles declared as the new
British invasion, reference to the War of Independence, Paul Revere
went yelling the British are Coming!
Only this time it was The Beatles are Coming!
Made debut on TV, Feb 9th The Ed Sulivan Show
o Everyone in the crowd goes crazy, mostly girls
o Est. 70million people saw it
o If u study the stats, there is a drop in crime rates close to
zero
Many people drew inspiration from this show, e.g. Young Bruce
Springsteen in NJ
o Young Gene Simmons (KISS) couldn't get good reception
while watching the show and couldn't understand what the
noise behind the singing was
o It was 16 year olds yelling fuuuuuck meeee
o Ever since Gene knew what he wanted to do with his life
o KISS structure is the same, 2 guitars, 1 bass, 1 drums
First time anyone played in a major boxing arena; in Washington
Coliseum

Tour lasts for 2 weeks

2 million albums
$2.5 million in merchandising
Beatle Mania, mass hysteria
And theyre only getting warmed up

APRIL 1964
12 songs in the Billboard top 100 SIMULTANEOUSLY
including positions 1 to 5
no one has had this success ever, and no ones since then too
every 10 albums sold in the world anywhere, 6 of them are Beatles
Three Weeks in April 60% of all record sales

July 1964 A Hard Days Night

Their first movie
Quite funny, theyre good actors

End of 4th U.S. tour in 1965 - $65 million dollars in revenue

Had concerts in places no one ever has

August 1965
Become first to play in a major outdoor sports stadium, Shea
Stadium
The Beatles change the game
Trailblazers

The hysteria intensifies, theyre absolutely unmatched in popularity

They change the economy of scale, the pop industry
In terms of how many albums you can really sell

IMPORTANCE: became a new style of band music, template for

what is to follow
Mersey Beat Bands: early Beatles style (Liverpool reference as
center of music industry in UK, port built at the river Mersey)
Gerry and the Pacemakers
The Swinging Blue Jeans
The Searchers

July 1965
Their second film, Help
Very successful
Created an idea of making a fictional band to base a TV show
around, the Monkeys
As a response to the success of the film

One record on the album went fairly unnoticed Yesterday

From the movie soundtrack album, Help
Unusual song, that Paul has been working on for a while
o Primarily written by Paul
o Rest of the band didn't like as much
o He ended up convincing them to put it on the soundtrack
AABA form

 More complex harmonic and lyric structures, chords are more

complex
A significantly sadder song, change in style
The song that signaled the change of the Beatles
Suggested that the Beatles are not going to be around forever
Theyre becoming more interested in different ways of recording
String quartets added for more gravity, seniority, different way of
arranging the song
First major recording that does not feature all 4 Beatles
During the US tour, Beatles get a chance to meet Bob Dylan
(possibly winter of 65)
One of the Beatles heroes and inspirations, especially Paul
Beatles are evolving moving away from pop song writing
Bob Dylan is also very impressed, arguably has an impact on them
by introducing them to marijuana
Bob Dylan had 2 major impacts:
o 1st impact: As Bob introduces them to drugs, they start to
actually make better music once they start experimenting
with drugs, Beatles are an exception to the rule of drugs
influencing their music for the better
o 2nd impact: bob Dylan says your music is great, but your
lyrics don't say anything, profound blow to the Beatles,
especially John Lennon, got them thinking on how to reform
themselves for the better

The changing album covers: August 65 Help, Dec 65 Rubber

Soul, August 66 Revolver
Nowadays the Beatles album covers are standardized, back then
they had many different covers for different countries
Rubber Soul: did not put the name on the album cover, start to see
it as an extension of the experience of listening to music, part of
the art rather than a piece of marketing and distribution
They revolutionize the way album covers are portrayed
Revolver: relating the album cover to the past experiences, line
drawing, the band themselves

Tomorrow Never Knows (Revolver) (composed by John

Lennon)
typically Lennon and McCartney wrote most songs

 Yesterday was entirely Pauls work

this is pretty much entirely Lennons work
song is based on a drone, Tambura - classical Indian instruments,
brushes the string gently to create background sound (influence of
non-western culture)
o spending time in India studying the culture
o studying the meditation, spirituality
lyrics and imagery are based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead
New studio technology:
vocal is double-tracked and is run through a Leslie speaker
cabinet; singer sings the song once, rewind and sing again over it
and try and match it with the first time using multi-track tech, very
difficult to get it precisely right, the result is a thicker voice,
however you can hear the separation between the two tracks, you
can hear the two voices separate, surreal sound created
makes use of tape loops (avant-garde) and backwards recording
o playing tape machines as instruments, rewinding
first know use of flanging
It would be quite doable, not easy but possible to play this song for
a band nowadays with digital tech and sounds
However in 1966, this song is unplayable live, nowhere near to get
it to sound like the original
The studio becomes an instrument for them

Demonstrates the growing influence of non-western culture, and the

technology of the recording studio on the work of the Beatles
This song would have been unplayable in concert in the 1960s

The band was losing interest in public performance by the end of

1966
They cannot go anywhere in public, prisoners of their own fame,
touring relentlessly, everyday is scheduled by the minute,
extremely stressful and frustrating for them
The are frustrated no one is going to really hear what they are
doing
The screaming in the stands is so bad they cant even hear each
other
June 1966 Japan

They speak no Japanese, so they can say whatever on stage

John Lennon gets frustrated cracks and starts saying gibberish and
mocking the cheering crowd which only loves the way hes mocking
them

July 1966 The Philippines

Supposed to be show up at a gig set up by then Dictators wife
Didn't show up, snubbed thousands of fans, orphan performance
Next day they were on the news, had difficulty getting out of
country
John Lennon famously disguised himself as a nun to sneak on the
plane
Military personnel got on the plane and grabbed some of the touring
crew to discuss airport taxes, roughed up and Philippine
government ended up taking all the money the Beatles made there

Interview in the UK
John is the intellectual so they asked him most of the questions
John said: Pop culture is more important to kids than religion
Made a point of how the value of religion is changing
They were slammed by headlines such as John Lennon thinks:
Beatles are bigger than Jesus

August 1966
Storm of controversy regarding Lennons Jesus comments
Mass outrage, death threats from religious groups, KKK included
In the south of the US there were rallies to burn their records
John Lennon was not very politically accommodating, instead of
saying he misspoke, he was saying everyone is stupid and
misinterpreting him, go read the interview
Beatles had enough, realized they have way more fun in the studio
August 29th Candlestick Park in San Francisco
Final public concert for the Beatles

no longer touring or playing live

disappear into the studio
for a year they go off the radar
next summer come back with an album (SEE BELOW)

June 1967 Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band

Arguably the most influential album in history of Western Pop music
A great number of things changed as a result
First album to include all of the song lyrics on the back of the album
cover
Making music that is impossible to recreate live (at the time)
It is considered to be the first concept album
o An album where the songs are all supposedly linked by a
theme or a concept, may just be an idea throughout the
songs or a narrative behind the lyrics
o The Beatles did not consider it a concept album themselves
o The songs as described by Lennon pictured them growing up
back in Liverpool
o They were not involved in the decision of in what order to list
the track, got sick of it in 6 months and left the studio
Example: A Day in the Life
o Sounds like two songs stuck together
o Actually assembled out of sections separately
o First part written by Lennon, 2nd part written by Paul
o More unconventional song structure, take different pieces and
put them together in an unorthodox way
o post modern approach to creating forms
o avant-garde techniques with orchestra and piano
o using the studio as an instrument: the piano fade at the end
of the song was a result of turning up the mic sensitivity
Shift to the Hippie Aesthetic

o
o
o
o

People stop thinking about Rock N Roll

Start thinking about ROCK
Moving from singles to albums
From dancing to listening, sitting down and contemplating,
browsing through the artwork, reading the lyrics,
understanding and interpreting the lyrics
Popular artists no longer just entertainers but serious
musicians, one of the single biggest changes brought by
Beatles
Experimenting with music, bringing new influences, if one
album is a hit, you don't have to do the same thing over and
over again, you can try new things
There are still many artists that intend to make music for
entertainment only, but there is an option to do something
more meaningful
FM radio AOR (Album Oriented Rock)
Before used to be dominated by AM radio
FM radio can broadcast in stereo, better quality

By end of 1960s
The egos started to clash
They are starting to fall apart
Two very talented songwriters on the band is not working out
Lennon and Paul had to have lawyers in the room to take notes of
who contributes what
They were done with their last album Let it Be
RIP Beatles 1964-1972

THE BRITISH BLUE REVIVAL

Influence of American blues was much more popular in the city of
London
Chess Records Tour (1977?) featuring Muddy Waters as headliner
Why was oldtime African American music so popular in
predominantly white UK?

Review: the hardships after the war

Generation of young British blues artists emerges
o Chris Barber
o Cyril Davies
o Spencer Davis (Major hit- gimme some lovin)
o Alexis Komer Blues Incorporated, John Mayalls Blues
Breakers
Future members of the following bands:
o Fleetwood Mac
o Cream
o Eric Clapton
o Led Zeppelin
And
ROLLING STONES
Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards, Brian
Jones
Made Debut in Marquee Club, July 1962
WHO WAS BRIAN JONES?
o leader, put them together
o Walking history book of American R&B, knew everything
o Stones created as a result of music that he loved
o Considered blues slumming it, was way more passionate in
R&B
o The name comes from a Muddy Waters song Like a Rolling
Stone

Andrew Loog Oldham (April 1963) first manager of Stones

Looked at Brian Epsteins Beatles

Thought he could do the same transformation with the Stones
Told them that if all they are trying to do is look like the Beatles,
that is all they will ever be, blend in with other bands trying to copy
them
Youre not gonna wear matching suits, nice haircuts
Where the Beatles are funny, youre gonna be smirking
Where the Beatles are charismatic and sweet, you will swear a little
bit, drink and smoke
Not smiling on pictures, more edgy, rough looks, not matching
became the anti-Beatles

1963 Change of Image and Begin to Record

In addition to songs by Willie Dixon
They also covered songs by Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly
Loog Oldham tells them they should stop doing covers and write
their own songs but they didn't know each other well and didn't
think they had it in them
John

I Wanna Be your Man 1963 (Lennon/McCartney wrote it

and gave it to Stones)
Brian Jones doesn't want any part of it, totally disinterested
Mick and Keith are captivated
They start to think maybe we can write songs
Against the objections of Jones they start to write
No longer blues

Englands Newest Hitmakers

England coming out of rationing post-WW2

Recap:
Stones started as cover band of R&B, expanding style later on to
include RockNRoll
Brian Jones did not approve
First album: covers of R&Blues songs
Im a King Bee April 1964
o blues form
o cover of song by Slim Harpo (1957)
o very accurate in reproducing the specifics of the song, and
the approach to R&Blues songs, e.g. distortion in instruments,
looseness in performance (style)
o change the sound to fit their own performance
February 1965 (I cant Get No) Satisfaction
first true big hit
product of Keith and Micks writing
see TEXTBOOK FOR LISTENING GUIDE
became the first US #1 pop

1967 Lets Spend the Night Together

verse chorus

July 1969 DEATH OF BRIAN JONES

Death by circumstance
Drowned in the swimming pool

Beatles vs. Stones

Beatles peaked for 7 years, Stones have been around since then
Beatles are cheeky and lovable, respectable
Stones are working men of RNR, rough edged, drug charges
Beatles came up from Liverpool, lower end of social economic
spectrum, changed into middle class darlings by their manager
Made the anti-Beatles by their manager, most of them were solid
middle class London
Mick Jagger went to LSE (nowadays lectures on internet trading)

Other Important Bands

The Yardbirds (blues influence)
o Eric Clapton passionate about American R&B
o First prominent guitar player in the band
o Jeff Beck prominent electrical guitar player, Musicians
musician suffered from stage fright, would collapse
sometimes from panic, he cured it by drinking unhealthily
o Another London studio musician would fill in when Beck
couldn't perform, or filling in in studios playing on others
records Jimmy Page
Led Zeppelin
And

The Who
Providing soundtrack for crime scene investigation shows (lel)
Part of British blue revival
Take an interesting turn
They were fully embraced by the Mods/art influence
Didn't make a lot of money, but tried to look trendy and chose
carefully what you wear
Union Jack and Round Dell on jackets

Something happened at the end of their concerts:

o 1967 live performance of My Generation
o started smashing the guitars, breaking the drums at the end
of the show
o just like smashing glass and plates at the end of the wedding
o if you smash the glass that was used to make toast you
symbolically can never undo a marriage
o same way with the guitars you can never undo the music
Some very extraordinary lines
putting forward ideas and concepts that will be picked up by the
style called Punk
later picks up in Grunge

In the late 60s

Tommy 1969 Rock Opera
Quadrophenia 1973
Incorporated music overtures usually an instrumental piece that is
4-5mins long, bits of pieces of the opera, all of the main themes
stuck in one piece

Soul to Funk
Development connected in the Civil Rights movement and the
development of African-American identity
Optimism emerging
Late 1950s
Rejection of blues as the sound of the past; rural south, slavery
New sound of the urban - SOUL
A-Americans Performers like Muddy Waters lost a lot of their black
audience because of the success of Civil Rights movement, there
was a sense of change and things getting better
As a community African Americans began to look forward rather
than looking back

New African American music: It needed to be distinct from white

culture, elements must be distinct to appeal to AA audience,
distortion in vocals, sweeping up and down notes
music for dancing, celebrating and having fun, strong sense of
backbeat, rhythm (borrows from R&B, but speeds it up)
FUSION OF:
o 1. Vocal style of gospel
o 2. Rhythm and back beat of R&B
o 3. Arrangements and lyrics styles from TPA

Important locations for Soul Music: 3 independent record labels

that became synonymous with soul music
1. Detroit MoTown, founded by Berry Gordy
2. Memphis Stax
3. Fame Muscle Shoals, Alabama

DETROIT - MOTOWN
back when Detroit was the Motor city, car industry center
Motown (independent) record company first important label owned
by an African American, most successful company owned by African
American at the time
Starts in 1959 based on Berry Gordys experience in automotive
plants, brings his experience to music making, apply TPA approach
Round up all the song writers, choreographers under one roof
o Holland/Dozier/Holland, Smokey Robinson
o Cholly Atkins: Choreographer
o Maxine Powell: Finishing school, work with female artists
o The Funk Brothers: house band, loose collection of a dozen
different musicians
All the music made consistently by the same musicians, only the
vocalist changes, when you heard/saw MoTown artist you knew
Youd Better Shop Around- Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
1960
o visual appearance of MoTown artists

o polished, restrained presentation sophistication

o very sophisticated, smooth gentlemen
o projected outwards to the audience by looking into different
cameras, very good performer
The Supremes 3 girls
o Diana Ross is the front man of the ensemble, however quieter
voice
o However Mary Wells was a better, more powerful gospel voice
o Gordy made Ross the front singer because he thought she
would appeal more to the white audiences
o Stop in the Name of Love 1965
strong beat, prominent bass
there is slick production, door bell sound
vibraphone, looks like a piano keyboard, metal bars, it
has a system that varies the air pressure (popular in
jazz)
combo of piano and organ
tambourine slay bells sound, used because Berry
thought it would be more attractive to whites
o music integrating, white and black merging
o MoTown accused of whitening the music
o Recording by black artists tend to focus on low frequencies vs
high white artist frequency sounds

ATLANTIC RECORDS
Recap: Atlantic sighed Ray Charles
Very large and influential although did not have distribution
In the 1950s was the most influential to sign and record black
artists
Jerry Wexler (1917-2008)
o Was a music writer at Billboard
o Changes chart name hillbilly to C&W and races to R&B

o He came up with the name R&B

Discovers a small record label in Memphis called Stax
o Formed in 1959 Satellite Records (Stax 1961)
o Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton
o Stax had a few similarities with MoTown, it used a house band
Booker T and MGs, mixed race band
o However, it was an issue having this band in Memphis on the
border of Southern states
o Approach to recording was different from MoTown, Stax did
not use multi-track recording, they didn't even record in
stereo, werent interested wanted to do everything in mono
o Would do several versions of the song and record all at the
same time
o Picked out the songs by voting
o Most interested not in precision of the music, but in the feel
and energy of the song
o Stax did not care about choreography
o Atlantic Records did a distribution deal with Stax but it fell
apart in 1967 when Otis Redding died
Otis Redding Biggest Stax Star
o Try A little Tenderness (1966)
o AABA TPA song written in the 1920s
o Hit for Bing Crosby in 1933
o In the performance he is just feeling the song, doesn't care
about looking into the camera, presentation wasn't as
important to Stax
o Reaches up and wipes the sweat away from a hyper
performance
o Otis Redding on the way to become a major star
o Died in a plane crash

Recap:
MoTown, top-down music production (Berry Gordy)
Over the door of MoTown it said Hitsville, trying to create hits, top
chart records
Berry Gordy was very proud of the fact that over 80% of records
were sold to white audiences, had a wide audience appeal
Stax Records also an important center for soul music, but more
focused on collective effort and the feel of the song, democratic
voting on the best version, no multi-track
Stax didn't focus on sales, appealed to any fans of soul music
Sam and Dave Soul Man 1967, Stax Records
Still the optimistic sound
Stax flavored soul
Soul as a term for black culture
there is a mistake in the recording: the horn players play long notes
in 1st verse, play short notes in 2nd verse, however they lost track
and come in playing 2nd verse a little later than they should
if all of the notes didn't make it
1966 Atlantic begins working at FAME
Civil Rights makes a great deal of progress
In early 60s Kennedy, becomes a president sympathetic to the
movement
Things begin to slow down and stall with his death (Selma)
Aretha Franklin
Paradigm of a black singer coming out of the community, strong
background in church, gospel singing, father was a minister
As a teenager had her career goal as a gospel singer

 Early 60s cast as a TPA style singer, formal looking dresses and
gowns
Jerry Wexler put her on a piano
A. Franklin Respect 1967
o Beginning of a more militant sound
o Quicker tempo
o Tambourine
o Song written by Otis Redding, wasn't a huge hit for him
o Song about a workaholic, comes home, wife gives him a hard
time, he asks for respect
o But for Aretha, it became somewhat of an anthem for the
Civil Rights movement and African American communities,
demanding respect
o Rise of another social movement: Womens Liberation, song
embodies respect for equal pay for equal work
FUNK
James Brown - Soul Brother #1
So funky he changed his costume at his own funeral
First Hit 1956, Please, please, please
Regarded as the first soul record, arguably
1963 Live at the Apollo
album recorded at the theatre
premium theatre for black culture
credited with being the first album by black artist to sell in excess of
1 million copies

 1965 Papas Got a Brand New Bag crossover hit

major hit with both black and white audiences
12 bar blues (A) , 12 bar blues (A) , 4 bar break/8 bar bridge
(B), 12 bar blues (A)
1965 I Feel Good
also followed the 12 bar blues (A) , 12 bar blues (A) , 4 bar
break/8 bar bridge (B), 12 bar blues (A)
popular with all audiences
a subtle reason for success with white audiences: AABA structure
James Brown said black folks like the blues, white folks like a little
somethin different in the middle, knew exactly what he was doing
Mid 60s immense star
Civil Rights Stall / Long Hot Summer
63-67 increasingly violent and destructive protests in black
neighborhoods
reach a crisis in summer 1967 Inter City Riots (Detroit)
When the riot is over, armed military and national guard moves in
19sq miles of city reduced to rubble, burned down
turn away from assimilation and create its own culture
Martin Luther King Jr argues the solution is coexistence
Assassinated in Memphis April 4th, 1968
The Black Panthers
o If they met violence, they would answer with violence
o Whatever theyre forced into, whatever needed
o Re-Africanization of culture
o Create distinct black identity, changes in food, clothes,
hairstyles (Afro)

o People changing their names (dropping slave names)

o Young Boxer Cashius Klay, changed his name to Mohammed
Ali
James Brown creates Funk to reafricanize the music FUNK
When he moves fully into FUNK, he loses his white audience
Doesn't have another hit with a white audience until 80s (hit song
in the movie Rocky)
Say it Loud (Im Black and Im Proud) 1968 James Brown
Introduces a new style
Get Up (I feel like being a Sex Machine) 1970
Changes in melody, changes in chords, the same chord being
played over and over again
The melody has been de-privileged, you cant really whistle the
melody, its no longer important
James is putting the emphasis on the most important aspect of
African music: rhythm and articulation, the way the rhythm is
articulated
James is making his musicians to think of themselves ultimately as
drummers no matter what instrument theyre playing
Interlock Groove: based on African Drum Groups Community,
each musician has a simple part that they repeat over and over
again, but put together creates a more complex structure
The sense of community, everyone is aware of each other, no solos
Riff-based composition, short repeated sections, improvise over
the top of the section, go forward with new section, or go back to
the old, entirely up to you, based on
Cyclical: pleasure in repetition
Open ended forms cyclical vs linear

1961-1965 Traditional Folk into FOLK ROCK

Beatles changed Bob Dylan as much as he changed them

he was astonished by how wide their reach was in terms of age,

religion, demographic and geographically
Bob Dylan came up with idea of playing electric instruments during
Folk

Bob Dylan Newport Folk Festival 1965

Came up with heavy style equipment to the stage
No one has seen it before
Dylan goes electric (electric guitar and equipment)
The audience was in uproar because of the intense volume
Everyone very unhappy and booed him
Pete Seger was restrained with an axe tried to stop the
performance
Everyone thought his career was over
What actually happened is he created a new genre: FOLK ROCK
Instead of condemning him in a few days people actually started to
show interest in the music
The electric instruments to folk fans were symbolical of RockNRoll
RNR was the sellout music, music of the richer
But Dylan has influenced the development of the Counter
Culture
Based on the US West Coast San Francisco
The Beats were the model for the Counter Culture
o Jack, Keronac, Allan Ginsberg
o intellectuals, artists
o Jazz Beat
o Beaten Down
o The view that the Beats had was a symbolic belief of
Beatitude awareness that you could achieve that would
allow you to see the truth of things, higher consciousness

o The market, politics, consumerism blinds us

Homology: underlying similarity between things that on the
surface look quite different
Among elements of counter culture: attaining a higher
consciousness, symbolic but important
In order to achieve a higher level of consciousness, u need to
stimulate your brain (DRUGS)
Everything in CC is to maximize the experience of your brain going
beyond itself
Homology of Sensory Stimulation (Psychedelic)
Revived in the Early 1960s HIPPIES
Someone on the cutting edge of culture, aware of all the new
things, hyper-fashionable
move away from ideology of parents
two main centers of hippiness:
o Greenwich Village (New York)
o Haight Ashbury (San Francisco)
Psychedelic Experience
Poster Art part of the psychedelic experience, CC culture, to get
the idea across, the process of reading the art, reading the graphic
contributed to the experience
Clothing TieDye bright shirts, becomes part of the psychedelic
experience, visually colorful
Drugs members of the CC didn't know as much about drugs as we
do now, dangers and addiction, back then thought of as a gateway
to different kinds of knowledge and experiences
MUSIC:
o loud (volume increases), partly Beatles fault, louder amps,
PA systems, guitars, physically start to feel the music in your
body
o longer or unusual song forms
o Jamming (collective improvisation)
o Lighting Shows, another level visual experience with different
colors etc

 West Coast CC: The Grateful Dead (1970)

Influenced by Folk Rock
If you were in San Francisco and you needed someplace to stay you
could crash at their house
They would come and play at your party if you asked them, never
turned down an opportunity to play, a lot of free shows
Embraced the idea of Jamming
Doesn't have a strong sense of self-consciousness
Did not set out to show off themselves
An extent of looseness in their songs
Truckin
o the song did not end for 17mins
o making it up on the go
o at the end of each set song they would begin jamming
o improvising the rest of the song, unexpected
o the ultimate point to have a psychedelic experience
o the concerts were all different, every night is different
o legions of fans who toured with them that travelled with them
to see every concert
White Rabbit Jefferson Airplane (1967)
fusing the elements of rock (focused more on listening rather than
dancing) and psychedelic experience: ACID ROCK
two elements of the song that make it unusual:
o its quite short by CC standards
o differed from CC by being a huge hit, CC was not interested in
making hits, conflicted with key philosophies of materialism
the lyrics: based on Alice and Wonderland, resonates with the
culture of drug experience
Real world is not what we see (mirror), the Matrix

The song rises and climaxes and then it swiftly fades out, drops
(similar to drug high)

Recap: Drug abuse becomes an issue in the late 60s early 70s
(counter culture)
There were prominent intellectuals interested in possibilities of
various drugs (read about Timothy Leary in the book)
Crime rates go up as result of drug trade
After 1967: Youth Culture becomes more politically active
Counter culture was inward looking, search within yourself
It begins to look at change in the real world, becomes more
politically active
Youth becomes involved in civil rights, CC largely a movement of
middle class whites, not many black members
US becomes involved in Vietnam, proxy war between China and
USA
Young men were being drafted, everyone is questioning why US is
involved in this
Youth International Party (Yippies)
o Jerry Rubin, Addie Hoffman
o Close to leaders as CC ever had
Shifts from the West Coast to East Coast (near Washington DC)
CC Music changes (1968)
Music is louder more aggressive
Return to Blues influences
Psychedelic Blues
Blending of African American blues and CC

JIMI HENDRIX
Changed the way people played the instrument
So remarkable in his guitar skills technical virtuoso, for the first
time described as such
The beatles effect: recognizing entertainers as artists, masters of
their craft
Hendrix followed the CC tradition of playing at a high volume level,
yet he had great control of the distortion and noise
Control of feedback audio engineers spend decades how to
minimize it, main enemy of big PA system, the volume of the
amplifier affects the actual guitar string vibration
Hendrix figured out how you can use this to have the notes ring
back using feedback
Note: the organs in churches can hold a note like no other instrument,
symbol for the limitless power of god
Hendrix uses the secular power of the guitar limitless sound
Wah Wah Pedal tone control, change in tembre
Wammy Bar mechanical bar that lets you change the tension of
the string, dive bombs: hit the high note and then use the wammy
bar to recreate the tension of actual bombing
Voodoo Child (Slight Return) 1967
aggressive approach to the guitar
profoundly resonated with those who went to serve in Vietnam
veterans used is as the soundtrack to the war
his albums were used as black market goods (strapped cassettes in
helmets of soldiers)
Summer August 1969 WOODSTOCK Free concert held in
Upstate New York
Max Jager owner of the form
wanted to make admissions, but logistically impossible
all the most prominent artists signed up
o Jimi Hendrix, Santana
the organizers planned on 30-50k people

word spread quickly and people from all over the US came down
actually 350-500k people showed up
should have been a disaster: but it wasn't
once youre in, you cant get out
if you ran out of food and water, people shared
people saw the size of the event, but adapted
3 babies born during the festival
majority of the acts were white, not many women
took place on a farm someone fell asleep under a tractor, and
someone ran them over, they were injured and passed on later, so
not without problems BUT
held as a triumph for Counter Culture
on the verge of making a big difference

Altamont Speedway, California (Dec, 1969)

Rolling Stones were on tour, invited to Woodstock but were booked
on another gig
They wanted to organize their own Woodstock
First difference: they held it on an enclosed speedway not a farm,
couldn't really expand it
People began to panic when everyone got crammed in
They made a faithful decision: they hired the Hells Angels
motorcycle club as their own security
Paid in $500 worth of beer
Drunk criminal bike gang as security, hit people with lead filled pool
cues
While Rolling Stones were on stage, young man approached the
stage, he was carrying a gun, Hells Angel comes from the back and
stabs him, died a min later
Murdered in front of the stage, no one ever charged, Altamont was
a catastrophy
Beginning of the end of CC

 April 1970 Paul McCartney leaving the Beatles

Kent State, Ohio May 1970
Typical American university
Deeply politicized, involved in struggle against injustice
Student protests against Vietnam War
Would start as peaceful but turned into vandalism
US military would have recruiters on campus
Targets of vandalism as a result of a few out of control protesters
Next day the national guard shows up and breaks up protests
Tear gas used; a small group of students break off and make a run
for the hill looking at the group of protesters from the hill onto the
parking lot
The national guard formed a line and opened fire on the shots
4 shot dead, many more injured, 2 of those killed werent even
involved in protest, no one was ever charged, they got what they
deserved for civil disobedience
it became clear that those in position of power were not only
disinterested in CC ideology and voices of young people, but also
they looked the other way when someone got killed, young people
are disposable
kept getting worse
September 1970 Jimi Hendrix DEAD
October 1970 Janice Joplin DEAD
July 1971 Jim Morrison DEAD (the Doors)
Three major stars of the CC
There was no more optimism
Anti-war protests continue but nowhere near to the same extent
No energy left
1970 the war ends

1970s SHIFT to the HIPPIE AESTHETIC

started by the Beatles
marks the shift from RockNRoll to Rock
moving from
o singles to albums
o dancing to listening
o entertainers to serious musicians
o FM radio
Emergence of Hard Rock/Heavy Metal
Sonic development from psychedelic blues
Jimi Hendrix was the transition figure from Blues to Rock
To a great extent a response of the failure of Counter Culture
Distinction between the two:
1. Level of distortion
o at the Hard Rock end the distortion tends to be confined to
guitars and a little bit to the vocalist;
o at the Heavy Metal distortion is everywhere, guitars have a
heavier distortion, bass, and lead vocalist changes his voice
2. Tempo
o Hard Rock has a limited range of tempos, comfortable for
dancing, not very fast or slow
o Heavy Metal has a much wider range of tempos, super quick
or super slow, abilities of the musician is an important
element
3. Lyrics
o Hard Rock lyrics fall within the Chuck Berry school of writing:
lyrics are concerned with girls, relationships, acquisition of
material things like cars, freedom of being away from
commitments, school and work, celebration of Rock N Roll
itself

o Heavy Metal lyrics deal with other ideas such as fantasy

imagery, mythology, religious imagery, lyrics that deal with
fear, madness, out of control, states of instability
3 Model, Founding bands of Hard Rock/Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
(actually touring again!)
emerges out of British blues revival
doomy music he wanted to get the sense of disenfranchisement
among young people
Ozzy Osbourne (lead singer) said there was no CC envisioned
freedom
Decided to name themselves after a movie Black Sabbath
They took up elements of madness and instability
Dealing with the idea of futility of war
War Pigs 1970 album Paranoid
o begins with an air raid siren
o self-indulgent from one perspective, its 8 min long
o but the message being passed on is clear, it doesn't glorify
and celebrate war but instead exposes the horrible
o distortion in the song is limited to the guitar, but cant read
into it too much, and also no vocal distortion, leans to hard
rock side
o slow tempo at the start, but speeds up later on, heavy metal
side
o the lyrics are futile and fatalistic, definitely heavy metal style
DEEP PURPLE
Also British
Highway Star (1972 from the album Machine Head)
o Lyrics: nobody gonna take my car, hard rock, Berry- style
writing

o Dancing tempo, doesn't change throughout the song, also n

line with hard rock
o Distortion: virtuosic display of voice control, high notes, it's a
self-conscious show off style to sing in high notes, but its
not overwhelming distortion
o The keyboard solo is influenced by Bach (baroque era
classical composer)
Other than the typical instruments, the keyboard electric organ
makes it into their music (played by John Lord)
You can plug it into an amplifier, can play with distortion and
feedback, can infinitely sustain the note (another symbol) good for
the showmanship and theatrics during live shows
By the time we get to the 1970s there are traditions of how to
teach technically how to play keyboard, less likely that you are self
taught, more likely you have been taught, exposed to classical
music during the studies
John Lord and other keyboard players bring something new to the
game: basing songs technically on classical music, the idea of
virtuosity and technical proficiency
Classical influences in musicianship and approach to solos
LED ZEPPELIN
Grew out of the Yardbirds (British Blues Revival)
Because of the BBlues revival, R&B is still an important part of the
style particularly at the hard rock (e.g. AC/DC is very blues
influenced)
Out of the 3 bands they had the most prominent blues influenced
One of their albums was stolen from their favorite records, Willie
Dixon was one of the involved in the following lawsuit
They are also the most difficult to pinpoint them on the hard rock vs
heavy metal spectrum, had a range of work
They show one of the strongest influences of the Hippie Aesthetic
by their use of the recording studio
Jimmy Page was obsessed with the recording end of the music,
spent a lot of time in the studio, mixing remixing, adding sounds
Strong acoustic/Celtic influences in some music
Virtuosic musicianship / mastery of recording studio
No interest in editing for singles
(Stairway to Heaven is soooooo overrated bruh)
Whole Lotta Love 1969 (Led Zeppelin II)
o blues-riff based, West African retentions

o sued by Willie Dixon of Chess Records (You Need Love 1962

performed by Muddy Waters)
o importance of control in studio
o replace the word love with penis to understand the
meaning
o first half is more traditional hard-rock lyrical and music style,
strong blues influence
o the middle bit is very abstract, studio-designed for sitting and
listening, but then goes back to the traditional bit
Led Zeppelin becomes center of experience in the Stadium Concert
Had a huge fanbase but did not have good reception from critics
No radio air play
Critical rejection in music press
This style was ignored by TV coverage and journalism
Reviews of 2nd album was horrible
Concert becomes the only place to connect with the band
Becomes focal point:
o form of worship
o adulation of technical mastery
they wanted to create a sense of personal power, mastery of the
individual
1973 NYC concert
Led Zeppelin concert innovation, STADIUM ROCK
Jimmy Page strikes the guitar with the violin bow and hits a chord,
someone backstage turns on the echo device
And then another chord is created as a result when he gestures
Also the lights change color
The appearance of conjuring music by waving the wand giving
him an impression of a powerful magician THE POWER
That's what these theatrical solos were for

Failure of the Counter Culture and the community, gives way to the
Power of the Individual
Fans as musicians want to be the band
Stadium Rock does take on aspects of the Hippie Aesthetic: to be
changing and evolving trying new things, focus on albums and
listening rather than singles, but the sense of community is gone, it
has become more selfish in a sense, focused on becoming
GREATEST

Concert is the only place to connect with the band

The band names change: there are no more The, no more plurals
ending in the letter S (Beatles, Rolling Stones) non-plural names
Just like corporations the bands have singular identity names
The LOGO 70s stadium rock bands all have one circulating logo
used on all merch, concerts
They are rejecting the community culture and embracing the
powerfulness of the solo, the corporate power and structure
A lot of the politics has been pushed aside
The music industry is worth much more $2billion, at the time bigger
than both sports and film
A lot of people felt left out because of the move away from politics
Two other shapes of music created by these people as counter
PUNK
Originated in New York, but transplanted into England
1967 Velvet Underground, Lou Reed/ John Cale
what is punk: 1967 is the summer of love in San Fran, height of CC,
few people thought it was missing the point of problems right in
front of it
the goals of CC are too broad and ambitious like Civil Rights,
Vietnam War and misses on issues like hard drugs, homelessness,
poverty
Punk music was not interested in becoming part of music industry,
not interested in mastery of instruments, but the ARTISTIC
EXPRESSION
Keeping it as close to your audience as possible
Blondie, Psycho Killers, Sex Pistols
Andy Warhol

o Used to take things that were simply part of the culture taken
granted, and put them in perspective and make them art, he
said we are surrounded by art
o Gave multiple versions of a single art piece
o He had a studio called THE FACTORY
o All the great artists, thinkers and philosophers came by
o It had a house band: Velvet Underground
o In 1967 released the first album:
Heroin
o Rejection of traditional approach to instruments and
songwriting
o Nihilistic lyrics, two chords
o But fused with artistic sense due to influence of Warhol
o They were good musicians, but they did not play to master
the sound, but to comment on the reality around you
The Ramones
o Also took inspiration from the artistic expression movement
as well as 1950s Rock N Roll
o Played a lot more intensely, aggressive, barebones, play as
hard and fast as you can
o DIY approach, learned a chord, wrote a song
o Three chords/No guitar solos
o Success in Britain
o They always wrote their songs, werent good enough to play
other bands songs, werent good enough on the instruments
o They went on tour of Europe, with several bands, but they
made the biggest impact on British youth, some of whom
were feeling left behind by the big music industry
Malcolm McLaren
o Manager, promoter, entrepreneur, also interested in politics
o very contradictory figure
o Followed the philosophical approach known as situationists
saw the world from the perspective of capitalist
materialism, putting material goods before the importance of
humanity
o Took away a simple idea: you juxtapose things in a way that
pisses people off, playing with symbols that will annoy people,
that's how u get attention for an artistic movement/statement

o E.g. the most hated symbol in British is the Swastika;

o Economic recession in England
o Spent some time in NYC and came back to Britain and got
involved with a few bands
o Wanted to change punk music band focus from poverty and
homelessness punk to class-based structure punk (much
more important in England, i.e. the royal family as the top)
o Hes looking for musicians to channel the aggressiveness but
add the commentary of the class based structure, designed to
offend people, use the situationist approach to materialism
o The band created was
The SEX PISTOLS
o They would steal band gear to make their living but
eventually ended up a with a lot of hot equipment in their
garage and decided to learn to play music
o McLaren sets them up with a new lead singer: Johhny Rotten
o First time he walked in he was wearing a ripped apart and put
back together Pink Floyd shirt that he wrote over I HATE
PINK FLOYD and that's where the band knew he was the guy
o They were rowdy as FUCK, they would not show up to shows,
start fights with the audience, wreck their recording studios
vomit and drunkenly rampage
o They hit their stride in June 1977 Jubilee Year of the Queen
(she has been on the throne for 25 years)
o God Save the Queen
Fast, loud, intense, no showmanship
Futile, dark, representing the recession
Disheartening, class-based political commentary
DIY album cover: posting together the title from
magazine cutouts
Labels put over the queens eyes and mouth just like
photographs of criminals / pornography covering up the
identity
The record almost didn't get released because the
printing company employees threatened to go on strike
The song did really well on the charts, but the #1 spot
in the charts in June was left blank because it was so
offensive
o However the success was short lived, they had become very
successful but they couldn't live with these success
o Sid Vicious (bass player) was a heroin addict, destructive
individual

o McLaren always tried to get them in conflicting situations

o He deliberately booked the tour through redneck areas in the
US where they were constantly getting into fights
o They broke up in 1979 mid-tour because they couldn't take it
anymore
PUNK RECAP:
The nature of punk is to be counter-popular music and destructive,
it couldn't handle success and grandiose
Punk also grew into hardcore, and NEW WAVE emerges from the
ashes of British punk (e.g. The Cars, the Police)
Moving away from big showmanship and technicality approach to
simplified in musicianship and songwriting
No solos
No real division between audience and artist
Punk is the not the only response to Stadium Rock
**DISCO DISCO UNZ UNZ DISCO DISCO**
the dancing culture was not as big at the time
no longer dancing was just to simple record playing or live bands
but it was an experience that the Disk Jockey created
first disco parties: David Mancuso Invitation Only parties
all the marginalized communities, gay, black and Hispanic
subcultures
gays are invisible in the stadium rock
1970s is the first decade where its not illegal to be gay anymore
also popular with women, somewhere they could go to be safe,
dance and have fun, not worry about getting hit on
soul and funk fusion
popularity grows through mid 70s
by 1972 disco becomes a musical genre, first records aimed at the
new approach of the discothque
120bpm
production is clean no distortion
complex arrangements over basic beat
Soul and Funk often remixed using reel to reel tape recorders, and
audio effects such as echo

Chic Le Freak! 1978

Chic were already really famous at the time of this song
Studio 54 center of NYC nightlife, really hard to get into, very
strict dress code
One time Chic guitar players went to Studio 54 and they were
refused entrance for not wearing the right things, even though they
heard their song playing inside
They went back to the studio and wrote a song originally titled
Fuck Off which gradually changed to Freak Off and then Le Freak
Funk and soul arrangements
During the drops there is a chance to Bust-A-Move, its time for
you to embrace the dance solo
The Trammps
(Disco Inferno!)
They are credited with changing the groove
Funk had a groove that went from 8th to 16th note
They changed the groove into a simplified drum groove
That was the key to disco music
Standardizing the tempo of the song at 120bpm
Becomes easy to fade one song from one to another smoothly
This is the aesthetic that DJs wanted, no music stop
One of the defining first true Disco records:
Love Train 1973 by the OJays
reveals many of the characteristics of Disco
120bpm, standardized tempo for the transition (blending), music in
the dance club never stops
production is clean no distortion, however some gospel influence
in the singing
complex arrangements over basic beat
Motown production techniques mapped onto Disco

Style was more about the feel

Disco picks up very quickly

Everyone is doing Disco songs (Rolling Stones, Kiss) by 1979

Gamble and Huff
Popularity grows through mid 70s rapidly
Success peaks in 1977: Saturday Night Fever! film (John Travolta)
(Bee Gees soundtrack album) its not a film that celebrates Disco
culture, instead show some people stuck at the bottom (Brooklyn)
in a way didn't paint the Disco culture in a very positive light
There is backlash in late 1970s, especially hated by Rock fans
Disco sucks T-shirts
July 12th 1979: Comisky Park (Baseball stadium), Chicago Disco
Demolition Night, there was a special publicity stunt: bring a disco
record to smash and get into the game for a $1
The average attendance is 16,000 but this time 70k people showed
up
After the records were being smashed, riots broke out and mayhem
descended, police had to be involved
The riot showed how people were feeling about Disco
In the summer Disco dominated the charts, by end of 1979 its
pretty much dead
But how is Disco a response to Stadium Rock?
There is no star in Punk, but in Disco YOU are the star, there is no
visible bands or DJ
The way people are dressing up and going to show off their outfits
and their dance moves
Dance floor is the stage in the middle of the club, lights you are
your own audience (mirrors are commonplace in the club)
It was a form of music that had a wide net of fans, it was
associated generally with black and gay communities
Majority of opposition to Disco were white middle class males.
Racism? Homophobia?
(Read textbook on the importance of what Disco was doing, not
who was making it)
Disco took attention off the artist and onto the fanbase

BUT DID DISCO ACTUALLY DIE?

No, there is an interesting end to the story
Frankie Knuckles DJ in New Yorks early Disco scene
Pioneer of Disco in NYC, one of the first to present the records in
the new style of blending, adding effects, create a night of
entertainment
As disco went mainstream, Frankie became to grow disillusioned
with it, he was looking for a change
Moves to Chicago in 1977, where he becomes one of the DJs at the
Warehouse dance club
Picked up a few new toys to remix with such as
o SYNTHESIZERS (were around since 1950s but they were way
too big)
o DRUM MACHINE (digital recording is now possible)
Somewhere along the way HOUSE music is created as a result

South Bronx, New York City 1970s

3 pillars of Hip Hop culture: Rap / Break Dancing / Graffiti Art
Kids love art to express themselves artistically but they arent the
galleries type
Grab some spray paint and hit up the train yard at night, paint on
subway train cars
Dancing is also a way to express, most people in this area cant
afford discos or dance lessons; aggressive style emerges, people
inventing new moves and competitions are commonplace,
underground culture
Music: Funk is cyclical, static background where things change very
slowly, you can do stuff over the top of it, this is the beginning of
rap
Precursors (the roots) to Rap
1st precursor
things in the past that inspire the new style
Oral word game: Signifying / The Dozens (think yo momma)

o rhythmic way to insult someone in a witty and creative way,

go back and forth until someone doesn't have anything better
to top it (8 mile)
o bragging, ritualized insulting
o African origins
The story of the signifying Monkey (trickster) that tricks the lion into
thinking the elephant said some stuff about his mom and sister, and the lion
gets beat up and comes back, Monkey keeps telling him other animals keep
saying bad stuff and the lion gets mad everytime and gets beaten up while
the Monkey laughs.
Its not meant to be taken entirely serious
2nd precursor
Personality DJs (1950-60s)
Speed/rhyming/virtuosic
Early radio favored live music, records didn't sound that great
especially on the radio but later on the quality of records largely
improved
Once TV arrives, playing records on radio really takes off
The whole trajectory of radio changes when they begin playing the
same popular records over and over again, top 40 is born
There are many radio stations but they all play relatively the same
music
However the biggest difference between radios is the entertainment
in between, the DJs that distinct their radio from others, engaging
and distinguishing DJs
There was an awareness in America that in black communities fast
speak and rhythmic speaking was common
Most DJs were white, however stations were hiring black DJs to
train the white DJs on how to be more engaging, eventually more
black DJs begin to get hired
rd
3 precursor
Jamaican Toasting
Jamaican yard dance / the Sound system men
Jamaica is one of the poorest nations in the Western hemisphere, at
the time still considered a British colony
Prior to 1960s: basically no one can afford records or record players
There was no real market there
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) controlled the broadcasting
Played lots of classical and march music
Jamaicans didn't like it; but when the weather was good some
American stations could be caught in Jamaica, Rock N Roll was
indeed very popular

Sound System Men owned big sound systems and records: the only
option for others to listen to the records, going to a yard party
They were very competitive, charge you for the parties, and scratch
the names of the records so other sound system men couldn't find
out what theyre playing
They became the first generation to set up recording studios in
Jamaican; theyre not producing records to sell in stores, but to
play in their yard parties
The record has two sides; at first you would put the same songs on
both sides
but they started remixing the songs, such as putting lots of echo on
the songs or taking out the words and putting these records on the
other side of the records: TOASTING
o it comes from West Africa, the keys to toasting
o it had to be a chant, had to speak in a rhythmic way
o had to fix your voice in a particular pitch
o lyrically youre talking about how great something is, or how
great you are
o chain your chants and encouragement Hippity Hoppity chants:
put your hands in the air and wave em like you don't care
4th Precursor
the popularity of fusion of poetry and rhythm (percussion)
particularly strong political sense poetry
at the same time the re-Africanization of culture is taking place;
James Brown
aimed at African Americans
When the Revolution Comes not yet rap, there is a rhyme but its
spoken word art
The general distinction between this and rap is that the words are
not sticking to the rhythm of the music

Flight to the suburbs

Anyone within a black community with a job, education moved
away from their intercity hoods
Knowledge to effect change
Wanted to make things better, fix the neighborhood

People left behind are lowest tab of social and economic ladders
When a culture comes under great stress, people still want to
express themselves
Whenever a community comes under economic stress: massive
unemployment, young people especially affected

How does this translate in NYC???

The earliest rap work goes back to 1973
DJ Kool Herc Jamaican immigrant
He was familiar with SSM, brought the yard dance tradition with
him to the streets of the Bronx
Hooks up the sound system to power of the street lights, sets up
two turntables and kicks of street parties
Extends exciting moments of a song, breaks, where the peak of
the song is from the perspective of the dancers
Two copies of the same record, break finishes on one turntable, flips
the mixer and the break queued on 2nd record begins, extending the
break which is the most exciting moment of the record
Cutting and mixing is the term he came up with
he is the first guy who picked up the mic and started Toasting:
speaking and rhythmic monologue over the music
1976 Grandmaster Flash
intellect of a chess player (Grandmaster)
speed of a superhero (Flash)
develops Kool Hercs techniques
quick mix the speed at which he transitioned between records
beat matching: with Kool Herc there was a stagger in the beat,
Flash could go between records keeping the beat even, difficult
as disco emerges, there are rock records
variety of sources
Superimpose several records, like very white music with James
Brown, but matching beats
sampling taking bits of other music to integrate in your record

because of the speed he did his DJing, he was unable to do his own
toasting, didn't have the time, much more involved in mixing
Had his own toaster: Grandmaster Melle Mel
Turntable is so busy and technical there is not enough arms and
brain for the DJ to do both
This is where the term RAPPER emerges
Before toasting / rapping were short improvised phrases
But Mel starting working out his raps and wrote them down
consistently night to night, prepared
Not really writing songs but this is the first step towards Rappers
creating fully original lyrics and music
He does full length raps

1978 Grand Wizard Theodore

SCRATCHING
o The legend states that Theodore was 14 at home practicing
on his turntable and his mom is yelling at him, while he is
spinning the record back and forth and putting the volume up,
then he realized it sounded pretty cool
Nobody really understood or liked this music
redefining technology of the turntable
when a community, or a minority is marginalized there are certain
words being used to insult, derogatory, or racist
KKK used wizard as the top rank, Theodore used it to make fun of
them and take the stink out of it
Turntable is a technology of CONSUMPTION, you sit and absorb
whatever has been encoded in the medium
What Theodore did is change the turntable into PRODUCTION
technology, to create something that did not exist before you made
it
In the Bronx this has become immensely popular
Parties in the park, DJ competition
Record companies begin to notice
1979 Sylvia Robinson Sugarhill Records

in 1960s she was a soul singer

she had her own small record label, recording studio
She had noticed the talking thing that the kids were doing
She was in a pizza place across the street from sugarhill records
She heard a song by Chic Good times, a hit at the time
One of the guys in the pizza place starts doing the talking thing
over it
She is impressed and invites him and his friends to her studio and
they record the next day over Chics beat
Rappers Delight Sugarhill Gang
o 1979, #4 RnB, #36 Pop
o Based on the song Good Times by Chic
o the one that gets noticed, certainly the first hit to emerge
from hip hop culture
o every rapper in the Bronx knew the Hip Hop don't stop
phrases, it came from Jamaica
o lots of people were pissed they used the lyrics to record it
o Now what you hear is not a test, Im rapping to the beat
o usually mic checks, tests during PA system tests
o this is something that is completely new
HIP HOP
we thought it was novelty, people thought it wasn't gonna catch on
but it did, especially in black culture
but even in black culture it was not universally loved
hip hop was the only style that divided the audience in generations
young people loved it , old people hated it
at the same time as Rappers Delight appears, next big thing
arrives: MTV
now everyone can see their favorite artists on TV, music videos

 artists become conscious about how they look in close up

MTV is controlled by middle class white guys who grew up listening
to Stadium Rock, if you were one of those bands you had no trouble
getting your music video on air
But black artists struggled (i.e. Michael Jackson)
If you couldn't get your record on MTV, you wouldn't have a hit
Until 1985
Aerosmith
Hugely popular in 1970s but went broke from too much partying
and not making much music in the 1980s
Restarted their career in 1985 when
Walk This Way feat. Run DMC
o originally done by Aerosmith
o redone by Run DMC
o the one that opened the doors for hip hop artists on MTV
Rise of MTV
Prince: could play lead guitar, dance and sing
Michael Jackson, Madonna
2nd wave of heavy metal: Metallica, Iron Maiden
THE END!!!