1.
Brixton
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Brixton is a district of London, located in the borough of Lambeth in south London. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London, Brixton is mainly residential with a prominent street market and substantial retail sector. It is a community, with a large percentage of its population being of Caribbean descent. It lies within Inner south London and is bordered by Stockwell, Clapham, Streatham, Camberwell, Tulse Hill, the district houses the main offices of the London Borough of Lambeth. Brixton is 2.7 miles south-southwest of the centre of London near Lambeth North tube station. The name Brixton is thought to originate from Brixistane, meaning the stone of Brixi, Brixi is thought to have erected a boundary stone to mark the meeting place of the ancient hundred court of Surrey. The location is unknown but is thought to be at the top of Brixton Hill, at a road known at the time as Bristow or Brixton Causeway, Brixton marks the rise from the marshes of North Lambeth up to the hills of Upper Norwood and Streatham. At the time the River Effra flowed from its source in Upper Norwood through Herne Hill to Brixton, at Brixton the river was crossed by low bridges for Roman roads to the south coast of Britain, now Brixton Road and Clapham Road. The main roads were connected through a network of country lanes, such as Acre Lane, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton Water Lane and Lyham Road. The area remained undeveloped until the beginning of the 19th century, with the opening of Vauxhall Bridge in 1816, improved access to Central London led to a process of suburban development. One of a few surviving windmills in London, built in 1816, is just off Brixton Hill, Brixton was transformed into a middle class suburb between the 1860s and 1890s. Railways linked Brixton with the centre of London when the Chatham Main Line was built through the area by the London, Chatham, in 1880, Electric Avenue was so named after it became the first street in London to be lit by electricity. By 1925, Brixton attracted thousands of new people and it housed the largest shopping centre in South London at the time, as well as a thriving market, cinemas, pubs and a theatre. In the 1920s, Brixton was the capital of South London with three large department stores and some of the earliest branches of what are now Britains major national retailers. Today, Brixton Road is the shopping area, fusing into Brixton Market. A prominent building on Brixton High Street is Morleys, an independent department store established in the 1920s, on the western boundary of Brixton with Clapham stands the Sunlight Laundry, an Art Deco factory building. Designed by architect F. E. Simpkins and erected in 1937, the Brixton area was bombed during World War II, contributing to a severe housing crisis, which in turn led to urban decay. This was followed by slum clearances and the building of council housing, in the 1940s and 1950s, many immigrants, particularly from the West Indies, settled in Brixton
2.
Alternative rock
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Alternative rock is a genre of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s and 2000s. In this instance, the word refers to the genres distinction from mainstream rock music. The terms original meaning was broader, referring to a generation of musicians unified by their debt to either the musical style or simply the independent. Ethos of punk rock, which in the late 1970s laid the groundwork for alternative music, Alternative rock is a broad umbrella term consisting of music that differs greatly in terms of its sound, its social context, and its regional roots. Most of these subgenres had achieved minor mainstream notice and a few bands representing them, such as Hüsker Dü, with the breakthrough of Nirvana and the popularity of the grunge and Britpop movements in the 1990s, alternative rock entered the musical mainstream and many alternative bands became successful. By the end of the decade, alternative rocks mainstream prominence declined due to a number of events that caused grunge and Britpop to fade, emo attracted attention in the larger alternative rock world, and the term was applied to a variety of artists, including multi-platinum acts. Post-punk revival artists such as Modest Mouse and The Killers had commercial success in the early, before the term alternative rock came into common usage around 1990, the sort of music to which it refers was known by a variety of terms. In 1979, Terry Tolkin used the term Alternative Music to describe the groups he was writing about, in 1979 Dallas radio station KZEW had a late night new wave show entitled Rock and Roll Alternative. College rock was used in the United States to describe the music during the 1980s due to its links to the radio circuit. In the United Kingdom, dozens of small do it yourself record labels emerged as a result of the punk subculture, according to the founder of one of these labels, Cherry Red, NME and Sounds magazines published charts based on small record stores called Alternative Charts. The first national chart based on distribution called the Indie Chart was published in January 1980, at the time, the term indie was used literally to describe independently distributed records. By 1985, indie had come to mean a particular genre, or group of subgenres, at first the term referred to intentionally non–mainstream rock acts that were not influenced by heavy metal ballads, rarefied new wave and high-energy dance anthems. The use of alternative gained further exposure due to the success of Lollapalooza, for which festival founder, in the late 1990s, the definition again became more specific. Defining music as alternative is often difficult because of two conflicting applications of the word, the name alternative rock essentially serves as an umbrella term for underground music that has emerged in the wake of punk rock since the mid-1980s. Alternative bands during the 1980s generally played in clubs, recorded for indie labels. Sounds range from the gloomy soundscapes of gothic rock to the guitars of indie pop to the dirty guitars of grunge to the 1960s/1970s revivalism of Britpop. This approach to lyrics developed as a reflection of the social and economic strains in the United States and United Kingdom of the 1980s, by 1984, a majority of groups signed to independent record labels mined from a variety of rock and particularly 1960s rock influences. This represented a break from the futuristic, hyper-rational post-punk years
3.
MCA Records
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MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by MCA Inc. which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group, of which MCA Records was still part. MCAs country division, MCA Nashville, is an active imprint of Universal Music Group Nashville. MCA was forced to exit the talent agency business in order to complete the merger, as American Decca owned Universal Pictures, MCA assumed full ownership of Universal and made it into the top film studio in town, producing hit after hit. In 1966, MCA formed Uni Records and in 1967 purchased Kapp Records which was placed under Uni Records management. In 1937, the owner of Decca, E. R. Lewis, chose to split off the U. K. Decca company from the U. S. company, companies if the emerging hostilities of Nazi Germany should lead to war – correctly foreseeing World War II. Lewis sold the remainder of his U. S. Decca holdings when war did break out, MCAs U. S. -based Decca Records kept the rights to the Decca name in North and South America and parts of Asia including Japan. U. K. Decca owned the rights to the Decca name in the rest of the world, after the war, British Decca formed a new U. S. subsidiary, London Records. During this time U. S. Decca issued records outside North America on the Brunswick, in 1967, Brunswick and Coral were replaced by the MCA label to release U. S. Decca and Kapp label material outside North America. Initial activity as MCA Records was based in London and MCA Records UK was formally launched on February 16,1968. Among the early artists on the MCA label, around 1971, were groups Wishbone Ash, Osibisa, Stackridge and Budgie, early MCA releases were distributed by U. K. Decca but it moved to EMI in 1974. In 1979, distribution moved to CBS, while the last releases in the 1980s were self-distributed, as the U. S. division of MCA Records was not established until 1972, the earliest U. K. MCA Records material was released in the U. S. on either Kapp or Decca, Uni label material was issued on the Uni label worldwide. In 1970, MCA reorganized its Canadian record company Compo Company Ltd. into MCA Records, in April 1970, former Warner Bros. Records president Mike Maitland joined MCA and initially served as Deccas general manager. Maitland was unsuccessful in his attempt to consolidate Warner Bros. Records with co-owned Atlantic Records which led to his departure from Warner, the three labels maintained their identities for a short time but were retired in favor of the MCA label in 1973. Drift Away by Dobie Gray became the final Decca pop label release in the U. S in 1973. Beginning the same year the catalogs of Decca, Uni and Kapp were reissued in the U. S. on the MCA label under the supervision of veteran Decca producer Milt Gabler. The first MCA Records release in the U. S. was former Uni artist Elton Johns Crocodile Rock single in 1972, MCA label used a black with curved rainbow design until the late 1970s. This design was inspired by the U. S. Decca label of the 1960s
4.
Columbia Records
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Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. the United States division of Sony Corporation. It was founded in 1887, evolving from an enterprise named the American Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the sound business. Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of singers, instrumentalists. It is one of Sony Musics three flagship record labels alongside RCA Records and Epic Records, rather, as above, it was connected to CBS, a broadcasting media company which had purchased the company in 1938, and had been co-founded in 1927 by Columbia Records itself. Though Arista Records was sold to Bertelsmann Music Group, it would become a sister label of Columbia Records through its mutual connection to Sony Music. The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded in 1887 by stenographer, lawyer and New Jersey native Edward Easton and it derived its name from the District of Columbia, where it was headquartered. At first it had a monopoly on sales and service of Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington. As was the custom of some of the regional companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own. Columbias ties to Edison and the North American Phonograph Company were severed in 1894 with the North American Phonograph Companys breakup, thereafter it sold only records and phonographs of its own manufacture. In 1902, Columbia introduced the XP record, a brown wax record. According to Gracyk, the molded brown waxes may have sold to Sears for distribution. Columbia began selling records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their Toy Graphophone of 1899. For a decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and the Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American recorded sound. In order to add prestige to its catalog of artists. The firm also introduced the internal-horn Grafonola to compete with the extremely popular Victrola sold by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company, during this era, Columbia used the famous Magic Notes logo—a pair of sixteenth notes in a circle—both in the United States and overseas. Columbia was split into two companies, one to make records and one to make players, Columbia Phonograph was moved to Connecticut, and Ed Easton went with it. Eventually it was renamed the Dictaphone Corporation, in late 1923, Columbia went into receivership
5.
The X Factor (UK series 10)
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The X Factor is a British television music competition to find new singing talent. The tenth series began airing on ITV on 31 August, dermot OLeary returned to present the main show on ITV and Caroline Flack was back to present spin-off show The Xtra Factor on ITV2, along with comedian Matt Richardson, who replaced Olly Murs. Flack also presented segments during the live shows. Louis Walsh, Gary Barlow and Nicole Scherzinger returned as judges for their tenth, third and second series. This was Barlows final series as a judge, Osbourne and Scherzinger also departed the series, but reprised their roles as judges with Walsh again in series 13. Auditions for the series started in March 2013 with mobile auditions taking place in 23 towns, after this, open auditions in front of producers took place in April and May in London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester and Glasgow. After bootcamp and judges houses, the shows began on 12 October 2013, and ran until the final on 15 December 2013. This marked the first time someone from the over 25s category had won the show since Steve Brookstein won series 1 in 2004 and it also marked the first time that Osbourne had been the winning mentor, having failed during her first stint on the show. As the winner, Bailey received a £1 million recording contract with Syco Music and it was reported on 22 February 2013 that Tulisa would not return for series 10, after being a judge for two series. She initially denied this and said she wanted to return, However, Tulisa confirmed on 21 May after months of speculation that she would not return to the judging panel. Osbourne stated in July that she was back for just one series, to go out on a high, Walsh eventually confirmed his return for series 11, following the returns of both Cowell and Cheryl. Dermot OLeary returned to present the show on ITV for his seventh series. Olly Murs, Flacks co-presenter for series 8 and 9, wanted to focus on his music career and therefore did not come back. On 29 May, it was announced that comedian Matt Richardson would co-present The Xtra Factor with Flack, after reports that Nick Grimshaw, Flack also presented backstage on the main X Factor programme, during the live shows on Saturdays. Yvie Burnett returned as vocal coach, brian Burke left as creative director and was replaced by Jerry Reeve and Mark Swany Hart. It was reported that around 20 people attended Colchester auditions on 26 March, the numbers attending vary from location to location and are on a par with last year when we found our winner James Arthur. Overall applications are strong for this series and are in line with last year, weve had strong turnouts at other locations for the mobile auditions with more than 250 people turning up at Hull and over 100 in Great Yarmouth. For the first time since series 6, auditions took place in five cities instead of six, auditions were not held in Liverpool this year, after it was one of the locations in the past two series
6.
Electronic dance music
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Electronic dance music is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres made largely for nightclubs, raves, and festivals. EDM is generally produced for playback by disc jockeys who create seamless selections of tracks, called a mix, EDM producers also perform their music live in a concert or festival setting in what is sometimes called a live PA. In the United Kingdom and in continental Europe, EDM is more commonly called dance music or simply dance. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, following the emergence of raving, pirate radio, at this time a perceived association between EDM and drug culture led governments at state and city level to enact laws and policies intended to halt the spread of rave culture. By the early 2010s the term dance music and the initialism EDM was being pushed by the US music industry. Early examples of dance music include the disco music of Giorgio Moroder. During the early 1980s, the popularity of disco music declined in the United States, abandoned by major US record labels. European disco continued evolving within the mainstream pop music scene. European acts Silver Convention, Love and Kisses, Munich Machine, and American acts Donna Summer, in 1977, Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte produced I Feel Love for Donna Summer. It became the first well-known disco hit to have a completely synthesised backing track, other disco producers, most famously American producer Tom Moulton, grabbed ideas and techniques from dub music to provide alternatives to the four on the floor style that dominated. The sound that originated from P-Funk the electronic side of disco, dub music. Much of the music produced during this time was, like disco, at this time creative control started shifting to independent record companies, less established producers, and club DJs. Other dance styles that began to become popular during the era include dance-pop, boogie, electro, Italo disco, house. In the early 1980s, electro emerged as a fusion of funk, also called electro-boogie, but later shortened to electro, cited pioneers include Zapp, D. Train, Sinnamon. Early hip hop and rap combined with German and Japanese electropop influences such as Kraftwerk, as the electronic sound developed, instruments such as the bass guitar and drums were replaced by synthesizers and most notably by iconic drum machines, particularly the Roland TR-808. Early uses of the TR-808 include several Yellow Magic Orchestra tracks in 1980-1981, the 1982 track Planet Rock by Afrikaa Bambaataa, and the 1982 song Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye. In 1982, producer Arthur Baker with Afrika Bambaataa released the seminal Planet Rock which was influenced by the Yellow Magic Orchestra using Kraftwerk samples, Planet Rock was followed later that year by another breakthrough electro record, Nunk by Warp 9. In 1983, Hashim created an electro funk sound which influenced Herbie Hancock, the early 1980s were electros mainstream peak
7.
Blues
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Blues is a genre and musical form originated by African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The genre developed from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs, spirituals, Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. Blue notes, usually thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are also a part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove, Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times, Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the troubles experienced in African-American society. Many elements, such as the format and the use of blue notes. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later and it is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century, the first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues, World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a form called blues rock evolved. The term blues may have come from blue devils, meaning melancholy and sadness, the phrase blue devils may also have been derived from Britain in the 1600s, when the term referred to the intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal. As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils, by the 1800s in the United States, the term blues was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase blue law, which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, in lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. The lyrics of traditional blues verses probably often consisted of a single line repeated four times. Two of the first published songs, Dallas Blues and Saint Louis Blues, were 12-bar blues with the AAB lyric structure. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times, the lines are often sung following a pattern closer to rhythmic talk than to a melody
8.
Country music
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Country music is a genre of United States popular music that originated in the southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from the genre of United States, such as folk music. Blues modes have been used throughout its recorded history. The term country music is used today to many styles and subgenres. In 2009 country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, immigrants to the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of Europe and Africa along with them for nearly 300 years. Country music was introduced to the world as a Southern phenomenon, Bristol, Tennessee, has been formally recognized by the U. S. Congress as the Birthplace of Country Music, based on the historic Bristol recording sessions of 1927. Since 2014, the city has been home to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, historians have also noted the influence of the less-known Johnson City sessions of 1928 and 1929, and the Knoxville sessions of 1929 and 1930. Prior to these, pioneer settlers, in the Great Smoky Mountains region, had developed a musical heritage. The first generation emerged in the early 1920s, with Atlantas music scene playing a role in launching countrys earliest recording artists. Okeh Records began issuing hillbilly music records by Fiddlin John Carson as early as 1923, followed by Columbia Records in 1924, many hillbilly musicians, such as Cliff Carlisle, recorded blues songs throughout the 1920s. The most important was the Grand Ole Opry, aired starting in 1925 by WSM in Nashville, during the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or Western music, which had been recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by films made in Hollywood. Bob Wills was another musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become very popular as the leader of a hot string band. His mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added an electric guitar to his band, in 1938. Country musicians began recording boogie in 1939, shortly after it had played at Carnegie Hall. Gospel music remained a component of country music. It became known as honky tonk, and had its roots in Western swing and the music of Mexico. By the early 1950s a blend of Western swing, country boogie, rockabilly was most popular with country fans in the 1950s, and 1956 could be called the year of rockabilly in country music. Beginning in the mid-1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the late 1960s in American music produced a unique blend as a result of traditionalist backlash within separate genres
9.
Peckham
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Peckham is a district of south-east London, England,3.5 miles south-east of Charing Cross. At the 2001 Census the Peckham ward of the London Borough of Southwark had a population of 11,381. Peckham was originally part of the parish of Camberwell, which became the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell, and also included Camberwell, Dulwich, Nunhead. Peckham is a Saxon place name meaning the village of the River Peck, archaeological evidence indicates earlier Roman occupation in the area, although the name of this settlement is lost. Peckham appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Pecheham and it was held by the Bishop of Lisieux from Odo of Bayeux. Its Domesday assets were,2 hides and it had land for 1 plough,2 acres of meadow. The manor was owned by King Henry I, who gave it to his son Robert, when Robert married the heiress to Camberwell the two manors were united under royal ownership. King John probably hunted at Peckham and local anecdotes suggest that the right to a fair was granted to celebrate a particularly good days sport. The fair grew to be a major event lasting three weeks until its abolition in 1827. Peckham became popular as a residential area by the 16th century. By the 18th century the area was a commercial centre. Peckham also boasted extensive market gardens and orchards growing produce for the markets of London. Local produce included melons, figs and grapes, the formal gardens of the Peckham Manor House, rebuilt in 1672 by Sir Thomas Bond were particularly noticeable and can be seen on the Rocque map of 1746. The manor house was sacked in 1688, as its then owner Sir Henry Bond was a Roman Catholic, the house was finally demolished in 1797 for the formation of Peckham Hill Street, as the Shard family developed the area. Today Shards Terrace, the block that contains Manzes Pie and Mash shop, the village was the last stopping point for many cattle drovers taking their livestock for sale in London. The drovers stayed in the local inns while the cattle were safely secured overnight in holding pens, most of the villagers were agricultural or horticultural workers but with the early growth of the suburbs an increasing number worked in the brick industry that exploited the local London Clay. In 1767 William Blake visited Peckham Rye and had a vision of an angel in a tree, in 1993, at the request of the Dulwich Festival, artist Stan Peskett painted a mural of Blakes vision next to the Goose Green playground in East Dulwich. At the beginning of the 19th century, Peckham was a small, quiet, since 1744 stagecoaches had travelled with an armed guard between Peckham and London to give protection from highwaymen
10.
Keyboard bass
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Keyboard bass is the use of a low-pitched keyboard or pedal keyboard to substitute for the bass guitar or double bass in music. The earliest keyboard bass instrument was the 1960 Fender Rhodes piano bass, the piano bass was essentially an electric piano containing the same pitch range as the electric bass, which could be used to perform bass lines. It could be placed on top of a piano or organ, Keyboard players such as The Doors Ray Manzarek placed his Fender Rhodes piano bass on top of his Vox Continental or Gibson G-101 organ to play bass lines. The Basset was in due course replaced by the Bass 2 and, in the mid-1970s, all three were transistorized, the Basset was among the earliest solid-state electronic instruments. Similar instruments were produced in Japan under the Raven and Rheem Kee Bass names, in the 1970s, a variant form of keyboard bass, bass pedals, became popular. Bass pedals are pedal keyboards operated by using their feet. Stevie Wonder pioneered the use of keyboard bass, notably on Boogie on Reggae Woman. During these decades the keyboard bass in its form was still in use by some bands such as the B-52s. In the 1990s and 2000s, MIDI keyboard controllers or virtual analog synths are used to play the basslines in some pop groups, Keyboard bass instruments are a common alternative to bass guitars in rap, modern R&B, and in electronic dance music such as house music. As well, bassists from bands such as No Doubt sometimes perform basslines on 25-note MIDI keyboards, jack White of The White Stripes uses a vintage Rhodes Piano Bass live, particularly on performances of My Doorbell. During Lady Gagas Monster Ball Tour, keyboardist and bassist Lanar Kern Brantley played synth bass on the Roland GAIA, information about early keyboard basses can be found at the Fender Rhodes site. Media related to Keyboard basses at Wikimedia Commons
