1.
Single (music)
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In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record, an album or an EP record. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats, in most cases, a single is a song that is released separately from an album, although it usually also appears on an album. Typically, these are the songs from albums that are released separately for promotional uses such as digital download or commercial radio airplay and are expected to be the most popular, in other cases a recording released as a single may not appear on an album. As digital downloading and audio streaming have become prevalent, it is often possible for every track on an album to also be available separately. Nevertheless, the concept of a single for an album has been retained as an identification of a heavily promoted or more popular song within an album collection. Despite being referred to as a single, singles can include up to as many as three tracks on them. The biggest digital music distributor, iTunes, accepts as many as three tracks less than ten minutes each as a single, as well as popular music player Spotify also following in this trend. Any more than three tracks on a release or longer than thirty minutes in total running time is either an Extended Play or if over six tracks long. The basic specifications of the single were made in the late 19th century. Gramophone discs were manufactured with a range of speeds and in several sizes. By about 1910, however, the 10-inch,78 rpm shellac disc had become the most commonly used format, the inherent technical limitations of the gramophone disc defined the standard format for commercial recordings in the early 20th century.26 rpm. With these factors applied to the 10-inch format, songwriters and performers increasingly tailored their output to fit the new medium, the breakthrough came with Bob Dylans Like a Rolling Stone. Singles have been issued in various formats, including 7-inch, 10-inch, other, less common, formats include singles on digital compact cassette, DVD, and LD, as well as many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc. Some artist release singles on records, a more common in musical subcultures. The most common form of the single is the 45 or 7-inch. The names are derived from its speed,45 rpm. The 7-inch 45 rpm record was released 31 March 1949 by RCA Victor as a smaller, more durable, the first 45 rpm records were monaural, with recordings on both sides of the disc. As stereo recordings became popular in the 1960s, almost all 45 rpm records were produced in stereo by the early 1970s
2.
Bedtime Stories (Madonna album)
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Bedtime Stories is the sixth studio album by American singer Madonna. It was released on October 25,1994, by Maverick, Madonna collaborated with Dallas Austin, Babyface, Dave Jam Hall, and Nellee Hooper in order to move into a more mainstream sound. The success of the soundtrack single Ill Remember in 1994 marked the beginning of this transformation, Bedtime Stories is a pop album which was inspired by contemporary R&B. Like its predecessor Erotica, the album explores themes of love, sorrow, and romance. Critics described the album as autobiographical, as the song Human Nature addresses the controversy surrounding her book Sex. Bedtime Stories received generally favorable reviews from critics, who praised the albums candid lyrics and production. Commercially, the proved to be successful. Debuting and peaking at three on the Billboard 200, the album was certified triple-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. It also became her fifth album in Australia and peaked within the top five in other international territories. Bedtime Stories has sold more than seven million copies worldwide, other singles released, Bedtime Story and Human Nature, did not match the previous singles success. In order to further promote Bedtime Stories, Madonna performed songs from the album on the American Music Awards of 1995, a concert tour was also planned, but did not take place due to Madonna acquiring the title role in the 1996 musical film, Evita. In 1992, Madonna released her controversial Sex book and her studio album Erotica. She also starred in the erotic thriller Body of Evidence, during the same period, Madonnas appearance on David Lettermans talk show was noted for her controversial behavior. It included the singer using profanity that required censorship on television and this made the episode the most censored in American network television talk-show history, while at the same time garnering the show some of the highest ratings it ever received. All releases were panned by critics and fans alike, calling Madonna a sexual renegade and claiming that she had too far. A song titled Ill Remember was included in the soundtrack of the film With Honors in early 1994, regarding the controversial period of her career, Madonna said, I feel Ive been misunderstood. So I decided to leave it alone because thats what ended up concentrating on. Sex is such a subject and its such a distraction that Id rather not even offer it up
3.
A-side and B-side
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The terms A-side and B-side refer to the two sides of 78,45, and 33 1/3 rpm phonograph records, whether singles, extended plays, or long-playing records. Creedence Clearwater Revival had hits with both A-side and B-side releases, others took the opposite approach, producer Phil Spector was in the habit of filling B-sides with on-the-spot instrumentals that no one would confuse with the A-side. With this practice, Spector was assured that airplay was focused on the side he wanted to be the hit side, the earliest 10-inch,78 rpm, shellac records were single sided. Double-sided recordings, with one song on side, were introduced in Europe by Columbia Records. There were no record charts until the 1930s, and radio stations did not play recorded music until the 1950s, in this time, A-sides and B-sides existed, but neither side was considered more important, the side did not convey anything about the content of the record. The term single came into use with the advent of vinyl records in the early 1950s. At first, most record labels would randomly assign which song would be an A-side, under this random system, many artists had so-called double-sided hits, where both songs on a record made one of the national sales charts, or would be featured on jukeboxes in public places. As time wore on, however, the convention for assigning songs to sides of the record changed. By the early sixties, the song on the A-side was the song that the company wanted radio stations to play. It was not until 1968, for instance, that the production of albums on a unit basis finally surpassed that of singles in the United Kingdom. In the late 1960s stereo versions of pop and rock songs began to appear on 45s. The majority of the 45s were played on AM radio stations, by the early 1970s, double-sided hits had become rare. Album sales had increased, and B-sides had become the side of the record where non-album, non-radio-friendly, with the advent of cassette and compact disc singles in the late 1980s, the A-side/B-side differentiation became much less meaningful. With the decline of cassette singles in the 1990s, the A-side/B-side dichotomy became virtually extinct, as the dominant medium. However, the term B-side is still used to refer to the tracks or coupling tracks on a CD single. With the advent of downloading music via the Internet, sales of CD singles and other media have declined. B-side songs may be released on the record as a single to provide extra value for money. There are several types of material released in this way, including a different version, or, in a concept record
4.
CD single
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This article is about the 12cm single. Not to be confused with 8cm single, the standard in the Red Book for the term CD single. A CD single is a single in the form of a standard size compact disc. It is not to be confused with the Mini CD single, the format was introduced in the mid-1980s but did not gain its place in the market until the early 1990s. With the rise in digital downloads in the early 2010s, sales of CD singles have decreased, commercially released CD singles can vary in length from two songs up to six songs like an EP. Some contain multiple mixes of one or more songs, in the tradition of 12 vinyl singles, depending on the nation, there may be limits on the number of songs and total length for sales to count in singles charts. Containing four tracks, it had a limited print run. CD singles were first made eligible for the UK Singles Chart in 1987, the Mini CD single format was originally created for use for singles in the late 1980s, but met with limited success, particularly in the US. The smaller CDs were more successful in Japan and have become more common in Europe. By 1989, the CD3 was in decline in the US and it was common in the 1990s for US record companies to release both a two-track CD and a multi-track maxi CD. In the UK, record companies would also release two CDs but, usually, these consisted of three tracks or more each. Pressure from record labels made singles charts in some countries become song charts, allowing album cuts to chart based only on airplay, without a single ever being released. At the end of the 1990s, the CD was the single format in the UK, but in the US. In Australia, the Herald Sun reported the CD single is set to become extinct, while CD singles no longer maintain their own section of the store, copies are still distributed but placed with the artists albums. That is predominantly the case for popular Australian artists such as Jessica Mauboy, Kylie Minogue and, most recently, Delta Goodrem, the ARIA Singles Chart are now predominantly compiled from legal downloads, and ARIA also stopped compiling their physical singles sales chart. On a Mission by Gabriella Cilmi was the last CD single to be stocked in Kmart, Target and Big W, sanity Entertainment, having resisted the decline for longer than the other major outlets, has also ceased selling CD singles. In Greece and Cyprus, the term CD single is used to describe a play in which there may be anywhere from three to six different tracks. These releases charted on the Greek Singles Chart with songs released as singles, in September 2003, there was talk of ringtones for mobile phones outstripping CD singles sales for the year 2004
5.
Phonograph record
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The groove usually starts near the periphery and ends near the center of the disc. The phonograph disc record was the medium used for music reproduction until late in the 20th century. It had co-existed with the cylinder from the late 1880s. Records retained the largest market share even when new formats such as compact cassette were mass-marketed, by the late 1980s, digital media, in the form of the compact disc, had gained a larger market share, and the vinyl record left the mainstream in 1991. The phonograph record has made a resurgence in the early 21st century –9.2 million records were sold in the U. S. in 2014. Likewise, in the UK sales have increased five-fold from 2009 to 2014, as of 2017,48 record pressing facilities remain worldwide,18 in the United States and 30 in other countries. The increased popularity of vinyl has led to the investment in new, only two producers of lacquers remains, Apollo Masters in California, USA, and MDC in Japan. Vinyl records may be scratched or warped if stored incorrectly but if they are not exposed to heat or broken. The large cover are valued by collectors and artists for the space given for visual expression, in the 2000s, these tracings were first scanned by audio engineers and digitally converted into audible sound. Phonautograms of singing and speech made by Scott in 1860 were played back as sound for the first time in 2008, along with a tuning fork tone and unintelligible snippets recorded as early as 1857, these are the earliest known recordings of sound. In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, unlike the phonautograph, it was capable of both recording and reproducing sound. Despite the similarity of name, there is no evidence that Edisons phonograph was based on Scotts phonautograph. Edison first tried recording sound on a paper tape, with the idea of creating a telephone repeater analogous to the telegraph repeater he had been working on. The tinfoil was wrapped around a metal cylinder and a sound-vibrated stylus indented the tinfoil while the cylinder was rotated. The recording could be played back immediately, Edison also invented variations of the phonograph that used tape and disc formats. A decade later, Edison developed a greatly improved phonograph that used a wax cylinder instead of a foil sheet. This proved to be both a better-sounding and far more useful and durable device, the wax phonograph cylinder created the recorded sound market at the end of the 1880s and dominated it through the early years of the 20th century. Berliners earliest discs, first marketed in 1889, but only in Europe, were 12.5 cm in diameter, both the records and the machine were adequate only for use as a toy or curiosity, due to the limited sound quality
6.
12-inch single
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The 12-inch single is a type of gramophone record that has wider groove spacing and shorter playing time compared to typical LPs. This allows for levels to be cut on the disc by the cutting engineer, which in turn gives a wider dynamic range. This record type is used in disco and dance music genres. They are played at either 33 1⁄3 or 45 rpm, 12-inch singles typically have much shorter playing time than full-length LPs, thus require fewer grooves per inch. This extra space permits a broader dynamic range or louder recording level as the grooves excursions can be greater in amplitude. Many record companies began producing 12-inch singles at 33 1⁄3 rpm, although 45 rpm gives better treble response and was used on many 12-inch singles, the gramophone records cut especially for dance-floor DJs came into existence with the advent of recorded Jamaican mento music in the 1950s. With the 1967 Jamaican invention of remix, called dub on the island, those specials became valuable items sold to allied sound system DJs, who could draw crowds with their exclusive hits. The popularity of sound engineer King Tubby, who singlehandedly invented and perfected dub remixes from as early as 1967. By then 10-inch records were used to cut those dubs, by 1971, most reggae singles issued in Jamaica included on their B-side a dub remix of the A-side, many of them first tested as exclusive dub plates on dances. Those dubs basically included drum and bass-oriented remixes used by sound system selecters, the 10-inch acetate specials would remain popular until at least the 2000s in Jamaica. Most likely, the use of exclusive dub acetates in Jamaica also led American DJs to do the same. In the United States, the 12-inch single gramophone record came into popularity with the advent of music in the 1970s after earlier market experiments. In early 1970, Cycle/Ampex Records test-marketed a 12-inch single by Buddy Fite, the experiment aimed to energize the struggling singles market, offering a new option for consumers who had stopped buying traditional singles. The record was pressed at 33 rpm, with run times to the 7-inch 45-rpm pressing of the single. Several hundred copies were available for sale for 98 cents each at two Tower Records stores. Another early 12-inch single was released in 1973 by soul/R&B musician/songwriter/producer Jerry Williams, 12-inch promotional copies of Straight From My Heart were released on his own Swamp Dogg Presents label, with distribution by Jamie/Guyden Distribution Corporation. It was manufactured by Jamie Record Co. of Philadelphia, PA, the B-side of the record is blank. The first 12-inch single made specifically for DJs was actually a 10-inch acetate used by a mix engineer in need of a Friday-night test copy for famed disco mixer Tom Moulton, the song was Ill be holding on by Al Downing
7.
Electronic music
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In general, a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound producing devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, purely electronic sound production can be achieved using devices such as the theremin, sound synthesizer, and computer. During the 1920s and 1930s, electronic instruments were introduced and the first compositions for instruments were composed. Musique concrète, created in Paris in 1948, was based on editing together recorded fragments of natural and industrial sounds, Music produced solely from electronic generators was first produced in Germany in 1953. Electronic music was created in Japan and the United States beginning in the 1950s. An important new development was the advent of computers for the purpose of composing music, algorithmic composition was first demonstrated in Australia in 1951. In America and Europe, live electronics were pioneered in the early 1960s, during the 1970s to early 1980s, the monophonic Minimoog became once the most widely used synthesizer at that time in both popular and electronic art music. In the 1980s, electronic music became dominant in popular music, with a greater reliance on synthesizers, and the adoption of programmable drum machines. Electronically produced music became prevalent in the domain by the 1990s. Contemporary electronic music includes many varieties and ranges from art music to popular forms such as electronic dance music. Today, pop music is most recognizable in its 4/4 form. At the turn of the 20th century, experimentation with emerging electronics led to the first electronic musical instruments and these initial inventions were not sold, but were instead used in demonstrations and public performances. The audiences were presented with reproductions of existing music instead of new compositions for the instruments, while some were considered novelties and produced simple tones, the Telharmonium accurately synthesized the sound of orchestral instruments. It achieved viable public interest and made progress into streaming music through telephone networks. Critics of musical conventions at the time saw promise in these developments, ferruccio Busoni encouraged the composition of microtonal music allowed for by electronic instruments. He predicted the use of machines in future music, writing the influential Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music, futurists such as Francesco Balilla Pratella and Luigi Russolo began composing music with acoustic noise to evoke the sound of machinery. They predicted expansions in timbre allowed for by electronics in the influential manifesto The Art of Noises, developments of the vacuum tube led to electronic instruments that were smaller, amplified, and more practical for performance. In particular, the theremin, ondes Martenot and trautonium were commercially produced by the early 1930s, from the late 1920s, the increased practicality of electronic instruments influenced composers such as Joseph Schillinger to adopt them
8.
Maverick (company)
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Maverick was an entertainment company founded in 1992 by Madonna, Frederick DeMann and Veronica Ronnie Dashev. It was owned and operated by Warner Music Group and it included a recording company, a film production company, book publishing, music publishing, Latin record division and a television production company. The first releases for the company were Madonnas 1992 coffee table publication, Sex, DeMann was bought out of the company for a reported $20 million in 1998. Guy Oseary increased his stake in the company and took control as Chairman, Madonna and Dashev left in 2004 after a lawsuit between Maverick and Warner Music Group. As of 2014, the company was revived as a management group founded by Oseary in partnership with Live Nation Entertainment. It consists of Oseary and other recording artist managers Ron Laffitte, Caron Veazey, Gee Roberson, Cortez Bryant, Larry Rudolph, Adam Leber, Scott Rodger, all nine managers and their companies joined and rebranded as Maverick on October 17,2014. Maverick Records was launched in April 1992 as a unit of the Maverick entertainment company and it was a joint venture between Madonna, Frederick DeMann, Veronica Ronnie Dashev and Time Warner. The name is combined from the names of three of the founders, Madonna, Veronica and Frederick, the company had divisions for recording, music publishing, television, film, merchandising and book-publishing. The venture was part of a $60 million recording and business deal between Madonna and Time Warner. It gave her 20% royalties from the proceedings, one of the highest rates in the industry. At the time of its launch, the company was bi-coastal, having offices in both New York City and Los Angeles. The record company division of Maverick also consisted of sub-label, Maverick Musica, the first releases for the company were Madonnas 1992 coffee table publication, Sex and her studio album Erotica which were released simultaneously to great controversy. DeMann was bought out of the company for a reported $20 million in 1998, after which Guy Oseary increased his stake in the company and took control as Chairman and CEO. Throughout the 1990s to the middle 2000s, Maverick would also release albums by Michelle Branch, Meshell Ndegeocello, dana Dane, N-Phase, Dalvin DeGrate, The Prodigy, Cleopatra, Tyler Hilton, Deftones, No Authority and William Orbit. By the early 2000s, Maverick saw its fortunes decline. In March 2004, the label and Madonna filed suit against Warner Music Group, claiming that mismanagement of resources, Warner filed a countersuit, alleging that Maverick had lost tens of millions of dollars on its own. Then Maverick CEO Guy Oseary, meanwhile, retained his position until WMG purchased his shares in 2006. Madonna was still signed to Warner under her recording contract, the same year, the band Lillix, which at the time was signed to the label, claimed that the Maverick no longer existed and that all the artists were now handled by Warner Bros. directly
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Sire Records
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Sire Records is an American record label that is owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. The label was founded in 1966 as Sire Productions by Seymour Stein and Richard Gottehrer and its early releases, in 1968, were distributed by London Records. From the beginning, Sire introduced underground, progressive British bands to the American market, early releases included the Climax Blues Band, Barclay James Harvest, Tomorrow, Matthews Southern Comfort and proto-punks The Deviants. In the 70s, Sire released a number of albums, including the 3 volume History Of British Rock series, and diverse artists such as The Turtles, Duane Eddy. ABC Records inherited Sires distribution contract when it acquired Famous Music in 1974, the UK signing policy was vindicated when Climax Blues Band scored a Top 40 hit in 1977 with Couldnt Get It Right. Also in 1977, Stein, who had worked with the group in the 1960s, convinced the Shangri-Las to reform, but the trio was unhappy with the quality of material it recorded, and opted out of its contract, the tracks have yet to be released. Sire returned to distribution in 1977 with a new arrangement with Warner Bros. Records, and the year, Warner acquired Sire outright. In 1994, Sire switched distribution from Warner Bros. Records to sister label Elektra Records, Stein had been appointed president of Elektra Records under Elektras newly appointed CEO Sylvia Rhone. Sire later left Elektra in 1997, becoming a label, and, in 2000, Sire. This partnership dissolved in April 2003, at point the company went back to being called Sire Records. Currently, it signs newcomers like the Ready Set and Lights, although an agreement was made in September 2009 and the videos returned, users have to view the WMG videos within YouTube itself, as embedding codes for them have been disabled. Like Reprise Records, Sire does not have its own website and operates under WBR as an imprint
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Warner Bros. Records
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Warner Bros. Records was established on March 19,1958, as the recorded-music division of the American film studio Warner Bros. For most of its existence it was one of a group of labels owned and operated by larger parent corporations. The sequence of companies that controlled Warner Bros. and its allied labels evolved through a series of corporate mergers. Over this period, Warner Bros. Records grew from a minor player in the music industry to become one of the top recording labels in the world. In 2003, these assets were divested by their then owner Time Warner. This independent company traded as the Warner Music Group before being bought by Access Industries in 2011, WMG is the smallest of the three major international music conglomerates and the worlds last publicly traded major music company. Cameron Strang serves as CEO of the company, artists currently signed to Warner Bros. At the end of the silent movie period, Warner Bros, pictures decided to expand into publishing and recording so that it could access low-cost music content for its films. This new group controlled valuable copyrights on standards by George and Ira Gershwin and Jerome Kern, the label signed rising radio and recording stars Bing Crosby, Mills Brothers, and Boswell Sisters. In December 1931, Warner Bros. offloaded Brunswick to the American Record Corporation for a fraction of its former value, in a lease arrangement which did not include Brunswicks pressing plants. Warner Bros. sold Brunswick a second time, this time along with the old Brunswick pressing plants Warner owned, to Decca Records in exchange for a financial interest in Decca. The studio stayed out of the business for more than 25 years. Warner Bros. reëntered the record business in 1958 with the establishment of its own recording division, by this time, the established Hollywood studios were reeling from multiple challenges to their former dominance - the most notable being the introduction of television in the late 1940s. Legal changes also had a impact on their business—lawsuits brought by major stars had effectively overthrown the old studio contract system by the late 1940s. Pictures sold off much of its library in 1948 and, beginning in 1949. Semenenko in particular had a professional interest in the entertainment business. With the record business booming - sales had topped US$500 million by 1958 - Semnenko argued that it was foolish for Warner Bros, another impetus for the labels creation was the brief music career of Warner Bros. actor Tab Hunter. In 1958, the studio signed Hunter as its first artist to its newly formed record division, to establish the label, the company hired former Columbia Records president James B
11.
Songwriter
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A songwriter is an individual who writes the lyrics, melodies and chord progressions for songs, typically for a popular music genre such as rock or country music. A songwriter can also be called a composer, although the term tends to be used mainly for individuals from the classical music genre. The pressure from the industry to produce popular hits means that songwriting is often an activity for which the tasks are distributed between a number of people. For example, a songwriter who excels at writing lyrics might be paired with a songwriter with a gift for creating original melodies, pop songs may be written by group members from the band or by staff writers – songwriters directly employed by music publishers. Some songwriters serve as their own publishers, while others have outside publishers. The old-style apprenticeship approach to learning how to write songs is being supplemented by university degrees and college diplomas, a knowledge of modern music technology, songwriting elements and business skills are necessary requirements to make a songwriting career in the 2010s. Several music colleges offer songwriting diplomas and degrees with music business modules, the legal power to grant these permissions may be bought, sold or transferred. This is governed by international copyright law, song pitching can be done on a songwriters behalf by their publisher or independently using tip sheets like RowFax, the MusicRow publication and SongQuarters. Skills associated with song-writing include entrepreneurism and creativity, songwriters who sign an exclusive songwriting agreement with a publisher are called staff writers. In the Nashville country music scene, there is a staff writer culture where contracted writers work normal 9-to-5 hours at the publishing office and are paid a regular salary. This salary is in effect the writers draw, an advance on future earnings, the publisher owns the copyright of songs written during the term of the agreement for a designated period, after which the songwriter can reclaim the copyright. In an interview with HitQuarters, songwriter Dave Berg extolled the benefits of the set-up, unlike contracted writers, some staff writers operate as employees for their respective publishers. Under the terms of work for hire agreements, the compositions created are fully owned by the publisher. In Nashville, young writers are often encouraged to avoid these types of contracts. Staff writers are common across the industry, but without the more office-like working arrangements favored in Nashville. All the major publishers employ writers under contract, songwriter Allan Eshuijs described his staff writer contract at Universal Music Publishing as a starter deal. His success under the arrangement eventually allowed him to found his own publishing company, so that he could. keep as much as possible, songwriters are also often skilled musicians. In addition to selling their songs and musical concepts for other artists to sing, songwriters need to create a number of elements for a song
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Record producer
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A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performers music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has many roles during the recording process, the roles of a producer vary. The producer may perform these roles himself, or help select the engineer, the producer may also pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record companies budget. A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording. Producers also often take on an entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, contracts. In the 2010s, the industry has two kinds of producers with different roles, executive producer and music producer. Executive producers oversee project finances while music producers oversee the process of recording songs or albums. In most cases the producer is also a competent arranger, composer. The producer will also liaise with the engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation actually is music director. The music producers job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music, at the beginning of record industry, producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1950s and 1960s due to technological developments, the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously, all of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio and the performance had to be recorded. As well, for a song that used 20 instruments, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. Examples include the rock sound effects of the 1960s, e. g. playing back the sound of recorded instruments backwards or clanging the tape to produce unique sound effects. These new instruments were electric or electronic, and thus they used instrument amplifiers, new technologies like multitracking changed the goal of recording, A producer could blend together multiple takes and edit together different sections to create the desired sound. For example, in jazz fusion Bandleader-composer Miles Davis album Bitches Brew, producers like Phil Spector and George Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio, other examples of such engineers includes Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Brian Wilson, and Biddu
13.
Take a Bow (Madonna song)
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Take a Bow is a song by American singer Madonna from her sixth studio album Bedtime Stories. It was released as the second single on November 29,1994. It is a pop ballad written and produced by Madonna. The song also appears on her compilation albums Something to Remember, GHV2, following the sexually explicit persona portrayed by Madonna on her previous album, Erotica, the singer wanted to tone down her image for Bedtime Stories. She started collaborating with Babyface, whose work with other musicians had impressed her, Take a Bow was developed from this collaboration, after Madonna listened to the beat and the chords of the demo structure of the song. Recorded at The Hit Factory Studios in New York, Take a Bow was backed by a full orchestra and it was also the first time that Babyface had worked with live strings, per Madonnas suggestion. Containing oriental pentatonic strings, giving the impression of Chinese or Japanese opera, Take a Bow lyrically talks about unrequited love and it received favorable reviews from music critics, who praised the songs soulful, poetic lyrics. It was a success in the United States, becoming Madonnas eleventh number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100. It also reached number one in Canada, and the top ten in Italy, Switzerland, the single had moderate success in the United Kingdom, reaching number 16 on the UK Singles Chart, ending Madonnas record-holding string of 35 consecutive top-ten hits there. The music video for Take a Bow was directed by Michael Haussman, the video depicts Madonna as a bullfighters neglected lover, yearning for his love. It won the Best Female Video award at the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards, in order to promote Bedtime Stories, Madonna performed Take a Bow on a few occasions, including live with Babyface at the 1995 American Music Awards. In 2016, she added the song to the setlist of the Asian and Oceanian legs of her Rebel Heart Tour and her one-off Sydney concert Madonna, Madonna wanted to tone down her explicit image. Her first attempt was to release the tender ballad Ill Remember from the soundtrack of the film With Honors, musically, she wanted to move in a new musical direction and started exploring new-jack R&B styles with a generally mainstream, radio-friendly sound. It was included on her studio album, Bedtime Stories. I began the process by meeting with the hip-hop producers whose work I most admired and it was important, if I were to use a variety of collaborators, that the end product sound cohesive and thematically whole. I wasnt interested in the variety pack approach and she was also fond of Babyfaces song, When Can I See You from his third studio album For the Cool in You. The singers management called Babyface to set up a meeting and see if they wanted to work together, once met, both were surprised by their camaraderie and wanted to write songs. Madonna came over to Babyfaces house and after a couple of days they came up with two songs, One of them was based on a piece of music composed by Babyface, but he was not sure about its musical direction
14.
Human Nature (Madonna song)
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Human Nature is a song recorded by American singer Madonna for her sixth studio album Bedtime Stories. It was written as a song to her critics, who had panned her provocative image of the previous two years and Madonnas release of sexually explicit works. The track was released on June 6,1995, by Maverick Records as the fourth, the song received mostly positive reviews from music critics who have later noted its anthemic and empowering nature. Human Nature became a hit in the United States, peaking at number 46 on the Billboard Hot 100. In the United Kingdom, the single entered the chart and peaked at number eight, the accompanying music video was directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, and features Madonna and her dancers dressed in latex and leather, while executing highly choreographed dance routines. Inspired by S&M imagery, the video later influenced the work of singers Rihanna and Christina Aguilera, in 1992, Madonna released the coffee table book Sex and her fifth studio album Erotica, both being of explicit sexual content. She also starred in the erotic thriller Body of Evidence the next year, Madonna promoted Erotica with The Girlie Show World Tour, which was met with protests and boycott threats due to its explicit content. In March 1994, Madonnas appearance on Late Show with David Letterman was highly criticized for her controversial behavior, the release of her sexually explicit film, album and book, and the aggressive appearance on Letterman all made critics question Madonna as a sexual renegade. She faced strong negative publicity from critics and fans, who commented that she had too far. Madonna wanted to tone down her explicit image and her first attempt was to release the tender ballad Ill Remember from the soundtrack of the film With Honors. Musically she wanted to move in a new direction and started exploring new-jack R&B styles with a generally mainstream. She incorporated it in her studio album, Bedtime Stories. However, the singer was still seething about how the media had treated her unfairly over the last two years, when she started working with producer Dave Hall on the album, she wrote an answer song for the media. Titled Human Nature, it addressed the media and the press who had criticized her for dealing with taboo issues with her previous record. Im saying in the song that Im giving my back to them, Human Nature eventually became the fourth and final single released from Bedtime Stories on June 6,1995, by Maverick Records. Human Nature was written and produced by Madonna and Hall, with writing credits from Shawn McKenzie, Kevin McKenzie. The song was recorded and mixed by Frederick Jorio and P. Dennis Mitchell with Robert Kiss working as an assistant engineer during the sessions, musically, Human Nature is a R&B song with a hip-hop influenced beat. It also includes a sample from the song What You Need performed by hip-hop group Main Source along with the sound of slamming doors
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YouTube
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YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. The service was created by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—in February 2005, Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion, YouTube now operates as one of Googles subsidiaries. Unregistered users can watch videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos deemed potentially offensive are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old, YouTube earns advertising revenue from Google AdSense, a program which targets ads according to site content and audience. YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Karim could not easily find video clips of either event online, Hurley and Chen said that the original idea for YouTube was a video version of an online dating service, and had been influenced by the website Hot or Not. YouTube began as a venture capital-funded technology startup, primarily from an $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital between November 2005 and April 2006, YouTubes early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California. The domain name www. youtube. com was activated on February 14,2005, the first YouTube video, titled Me at the zoo, shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video was uploaded on April 23,2005, and can still be viewed on the site, YouTube offered the public a beta test of the site in May 2005. The first video to reach one million views was a Nike advertisement featuring Ronaldinho in November 2005. Following a $3.5 million investment from Sequoia Capital in November, the site grew rapidly, and in July 2006 the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day. The site has 800 million unique users a month and it is estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000. The choice of the name www. youtube. com led to problems for a similarly named website, the sites owner, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment, filed a lawsuit against YouTube in November 2006 after being regularly overloaded by people looking for YouTube. Universal Tube has since changed the name of its website to www. utubeonline. com, in October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, and the deal was finalized on November 13,2006. In March 2010, YouTube began free streaming of certain content, according to YouTube, this was the first worldwide free online broadcast of a major sporting event. On March 31,2010, the YouTube website launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface, Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman commented, We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter. In May 2010, YouTube videos were watched more than two times per day. This increased to three billion in May 2011, and four billion in January 2012, in February 2017, one billion hours of YouTube was watched every day
16.
GHV2
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GHV2 is the second greatest hits album by American recording artist Madonna. Maverick and Warner Bros. Records released it on November 12,2001, coinciding with the video album, a follow-up to The Immaculate Collection, GHV2 contains a collection of singles during the second decade of Madonnas career. Madonna mentioned that she included songs that I could listen to five times in a row on it. The album did not contain any new songs, but a single, GHV2 Megamix, was released to promote it, with remixes by Thunderpuss, John Rocks & Mac Quayle. Another promotional remix album was released alongside, titled GHV2 Remixed, GHV2 received generally positive reviews from music critics, who deemed it as an essential compilation, although some criticized the absence of new material. Commercially, the compilation was successful, peaking at seven on the US Billboard 200 and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. Elsewhere, GHV2 also attained success, reaching the top five in Australia, Germany and it was the 14th best-selling album of the year and has sold more than seven million units worldwide. In early September 2001, media reported that Madonna had recorded two songs, Sex Makes the World Go Round and Veronica Electronica, to be included on the forthcoming greatest hits album, the last title was from an unreleased remix album in collaboration with William Orbit. It was also reported that the album would be titled The Immaculate Collection 2, however, both the title and new songs rumors were proven false. After the final show of Madonnas Drowned World Tour on September 15,2001, on October 4,2001, Maverick Records eventually announced the track list of GHV2 as well as its official release date. The album coincided with the release of the DVD/VHS video album of the tour, unlike the former release, GHV2 did not feature any new material. In an interview with BBCs Jo Whiley, Madonna spoke about the selection of the tracks and she also added that If you listen to the record, you can really see my evolution as a singer, songwriter, and, more important, a human being. Madonna felt that because it was a greatest hits, it should only contain previously released hit songs, several of her popular singles of that period were excluded from the album. Despite being a worldwide hit in 2000, American Pie was not included because Madonna had regretted putting it on her eighth studio album. It was something a certain record company executive twisted my arm into doing and my gut told me not to, but I did it and then I regretted it so just for that reason it didnt deserve a place on GHV2. Other notable exclusions were This Used to Be My Playground, Rain, Ill Remember, the cover picture is from a 2001 photo shoot for InStyle magazine, by Regan Cameron. It was revealed through Madonnas official website, on October 18,2001, Cameron recalled that they had been given the assignment of shooting Madonna for InStyle and he was nervous. It was shot at Smashbox Studios in Los Angeles and he tried out first with a polaroid, Cameron also contributed artwork for the inner sleeve, which features 600 photographs of Madonna
17.
Demo (music)
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A demo is a song or group of songs recorded for limited circulation or reference use rather than for general public release. Demos are typically recorded on relatively crude equipment such as boom box cassette recorders, small four-track or eight-track machines, songwriters and publishers demos are recorded with minimal instrumentation - usually just an acoustic guitar or piano, and the vocalist. Many unsigned bands and artists record demos in order to obtain a recording contract and these demos are usually sent to record labels in hopes that the artist will be signed onto the labels roster and allowed to record a full-length album in a professional recording studio. Many signed bands and artists record demos of new songs before recording an album, Demos may include as few as one or two songs or as many as would be contained on a full-length album. Demo recordings are heard by the public, although some artists do eventually release rough demos in rarities compilation albums or box sets. Other demo versions have been released as bootleg recordings, such as The Beatles The Beatles Bootleg Demos. Several artists have made official releases of demo versions of their songs as albums or companion pieces to albums, such as Florence. The event of a demo tape appearing on eBay has happened in the past, in more underground forms of music, such as noise music, black metal or punk, demos are often distributed by bands to fans as self-releases, or sold at a very low price. Collection of Demo Covers Music From the Demo Scene
18.
House music
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House music is a genre of electronic music created by club DJs and music producers in Chicago in the early 1980s. Early house music was characterized by repetitive 4/4 beats, rhythms mainly provided by drum machines, off-beat hi-hat cymbals. While house displayed several characteristics similar to music, it was more electronic and minimalistic. House music became popular in Chicago clubs in 1984 and it was pioneered by figures such as Frankie Knuckles, Phuture, Kym Mazelle, and Mr. Fingers, and was associated with African-American and gay subcultures. House music quickly spread to other American cities such as Detroit, New York City, Baltimore, in the mid-to-late 1980s, house music became popular in Europe as well as major cities in South America, and Australia. Since the early to mid-1990s, house music has been infused in mainstream pop, in the late 1980s, many local Chicago house music artists suddenly found themselves presented with major label deals. House music proved to be a successful genre and a more mainstream pop-based variation grew increasingly popular. House music has also fused with other genres creating fusion subgenres, such as euro house, tech house, electro house. After enjoying significant success in the early to mid-90s, house music grew even larger during the wave of progressive house. The genre has remained popular and fused into other subgenres, for example, ghetto house, deep house. As of 2016, house music popular in both clubs and in the mainstream pop scene while retaining a foothold on underground scenes across the globe. The song structure of music songs typically involves an intro, a chorus, various verse sections, a midsection. Some songs do not have a verse, taking a part from the chorus. The drum beat is one of the important elements within the genre and is almost always provided by an electronic drum machine rather than by a human drummer playing drumkit. The drum beats of house are four on the floor, with bass drums played on every beat, House music is often based on bass-heavy loops or basslines produced by a synthesizer and/or from samples of disco or funk songs. The tempo of most house songs is between 118 and 135 beats per minute, soul music and disco influenced house music. These artists produced longer, more repetitive, and percussive arrangements of existing disco recordings, early house producers such as Frankie Knuckles created similar compositions from scratch, using samplers, synthesizers, sequencers, and drum machines. Rachel Cain, co-founder of an influential Trax Records, was involved in the burgeoning punk scene and cites industrial
19.
Acid house
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Acid house is a subgenre of house music developed around the mid-1980s by DJs from Chicago. The style was defined primarily by the deep basslines and squelching sounds of the Roland TB-303 electronic synthesizer-sequencer, Acid house spread to the United Kingdom and continental Europe, where it was played by DJs in the acid house and later rave scenes. By the late 1980s, acid house had moved into the British mainstream, Acid house brought house music to a worldwide audience. The influence of house can be heard on later styles of dance music including trance, breakbeat hardcore, jungle, big beat, techno. Other elements, such as strings and stabs, were usually minimal. Some acid house fans used a smiley face with a streak on it. The origin of this usage was the bloodied smiley from Watchmen on the label of Beat Dis by Bomb the Bass, there are conflicting accounts about how the term acid came to be used to describe this style of house music. One account ties it to Phutures Acid Tracks, before the song was given a title for commercial release, it was played by DJ Ron Hardy at a nightclub where psychedelic drugs were reportedly used. The clubs patrons called the song Ron Hardys Acid Track, the song was released with the title Acid Trax on Larry Shermans label Trax Records in 1987. Regardless, after the release of Phutures song, the acid house came into common parlance. Some accounts say the reference to acid may be a reference to psychedelic drugs in general, such as LSD. According to Rietveld, it was the house sensibility of Chicago, in a club like Hardys The Music Box, that afforded it its initial meaning. In her view acid connotes the fragmentation of experience and dislocation of meaning due to the effects on thought patterns which the psycho-active drug LSD or Acid can bring about. In the context of the creation of Acid Tracks it indicated a concept rather than the use of drugs in itself. One theory, holding that acid was a reference towards the use of samples in acid house music, was repeated in the press. In this theory, the term came from the slang term acid burning. In 1991, UK Libertarian advocate Paul Staines claimed that he had coined this theory to discourage the government from adopting anti-rave party legislation. Several accounts claim that Genesis P-Orridge coined the term on the 1988 Psychic TV release “Tune In. ”By other accounts, while shopping in Chicago in 1986, P-Orridge came across a bin of records marked acid, indicating a corrosive liquid, and mistook it for a reference to LSD
20.
Techno
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Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan, in the United States during the mid-to-late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno in reference to a genre of music was in 1988. Many styles of techno now exist, but Detroit techno is seen as the foundation upon which a number of subgenres have been built. Added to this is the influence of futuristic and fictional themes relevant to life in American late capitalist society, pioneering producer Juan Atkins cites Tofflers phrase techno rebels as inspiring him to use the word techno to describe the musical style he helped to create. This unique blend of influences aligns techno with the referred to as afrofuturism. To producers such as Derrick May, the transference of spirit from the body to the machine is often a central preoccupation, in this manner, techno dance music defeats what Adorno saw as the alienating effect of mechanisation on the modern consciousness. Stylistically, techno is generally repetitive instrumental music, oftentimes produced for use in a continuous DJ set, the tempo tends to vary between approximately 120 to 150 beats per minute, depending on the style of techno. The creative use of production technology, such as drum machines, synthesizers. Many producers use retro electronic musical devices to create what they consider to be an authentic techno sound, drum machines from the 1980s such as Rolands TR-808 and TR-909 are highly prized, and software emulations of such retro technology are popular among techno producers. The Electrifying Mojo was the first radio DJ to play music by the Detroit techno producers Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Mojo refused to follow pre-established radio formats or playlists, and he promoted social and cultural awareness of the African American community. In exploring technos origins writer Kodwo Eshun maintains that Kraftwerk are to Techno what Muddy Waters is to the Rolling Stones, the authentic, the origin, the real. Juan Atkins has acknowledged that he had an enthusiasm for Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder, particularly Moroders work with Donna Summer. Atkins also mentions that around 1980 I had a tape of nothing but Kraftwerk, Telex, Devo, Giorgio Moroder and Gary Numan, and Id ride around in my car playing it. Regarding his initial impression of Kraftwerk, Atkins notes that they were clean, Derrick May identified the influence of Kraftwerk and other European synthesizer music in commenting that it was just classy and clean, and to us it was beautiful, like outer space. Living around Detroit, there was so little beauty, everything is an ugly mess in Detroit, and so we were attracted to this music. May has commented that he considered his music a direct continuation of the European synthesizer tradition and he also identified Japanese synthpop act Yellow Magic Orchestra, particularly member Ryuichi Sakamoto, and British band Ultravox, as influences, along with Kraftwerk. In 1980 or 1981 they met with Mojo and proposed that they provide mixes for his show, which they did end up doing the following year. These young promoters developed and nurtured the local music scene by both catering to the tastes of the local audience of young people and by marketing parties with new DJs
21.
Synthesizer
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A synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument that generates electric signals that are converted to sound through instrument amplifiers and loudspeakers or headphones. Synthesizers may either imitate instruments like piano, Hammond organ, flute, vocals, natural sounds like ocean waves, etc. or generate new electronic timbres. Synthesizers without built-in controllers are called sound modules, and are controlled via USB, MIDI or CV/gate using a controller device. Synthesizers use various methods to generate electronic signals, synthesizers were first used in pop music in the 1960s. In the 1970s, synths were used in disco, especially in the late 1970s, in the 1980s, the invention of the relatively inexpensive, mass market Yamaha DX7 synth made synthesizers widely available. 1980s pop and dance music often made use of synthesizers. In the 2010s, synthesizers are used in genres of pop, rock. Contemporary classical music composers from the 20th and 21st century write compositions for synthesizer, the beginnings of the synthesizer are difficult to trace, as it is difficult to draw a distinction between synthesizers and some early electric or electronic musical instruments. One of the earliest electric musical instruments, the telegraph, was invented in 1876 by American electrical engineer Elisha Gray. He accidentally discovered the sound generation from a self-vibrating electromechanical circuit and this musical telegraph used steel reeds with oscillations created by electromagnets transmitted over a telegraph line. Gray also built a simple loudspeaker device into later models, consisting of a diaphragm in a magnetic field. This instrument was a remote electromechanical musical instrument that used telegraphy, though it lacked an arbitrary sound-synthesis function, some have erroneously called it the first synthesizer. In 1897, Thaddeus Cahill invented the Teleharmonium, which used dynamos, and was capable of additive synthesis like the Hammond organ, however, Cahills business was unsuccessful for various reasons, and similar but more compact instruments were subsequently developed, such as electronic and tonewheel organs. In 1906, American engineer, Lee De Forest ushered in the electronics age and he invented the first amplifying vacuum tube, called the Audion tube. This led to new entertainment technologies, including radio and sound films, ondes Martenot and Trautonium were continuously developed for several decades, finally developing qualities similar to later synthesizers. In the 1920s, Arseny Avraamov developed various systems of graphic sonic art, in 1938, USSR engineer Yevgeny Murzin designed a compositional tool called ANS, one of the earliest real-time additive synthesizers using optoelectronics. The earliest polyphonic synthesizers were developed in Germany and the United States, during the three years that Hammond manufactured this model,1,069 units were shipped, but production was discontinued at the start of World War II. Both instruments were the forerunners of the electronic organs and polyphonic synthesizers
22.
Psychedelic trance
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Psychedelic trance, psytrance or psy is a subgenre of trance music characterized by arrangements of synthetic rhythms and layered melodies created by high tempo riffs. By 1998 psytrance had become a form of music. Psytrance lies at the hardcore, underground end of the diverse trance spectrum, the genre offers variety in terms of mood, tempo, and style. Some examples include full on, darkpsy, Hi-Tech, progressive, suomi, psy-chill, psycore, psybient, psybreaks, Goa trance preceded psytrance, when digital media became more commonly used psytrance evolved. Goa continues to develop alongside the other genres, during the 1970s the first Goa DJs were generally playing psychedelic rock bands such as the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd and The Doors. The music played in the 1980s was a blend of styles loosely defined as techno and various genres of computer music e. g. acid house, the music was brought on tape cassettes by fanatic traveler collectors and DJs. This material was shared and copied tape-to-tape by Goa DJs, in a scene that was not driven by music industry labels. The artists producing this special Goa music had no idea that their music was being played on the beaches of Goa by cyber hippies, the first techno played in Goa was by Kraftwerk in the late 1970s on the tape of a visiting DJ. At that time, music played at most parties was performed by live bands, in the early 1980s, sampling synth and midi music appeared globally, and DJs became the preferred format in Goa. Two tape decks would drive a party with music and continuous dancing. Cassette tapes were used by DJs until the 1990s, then DAT tapes were used. Among DJs playing in Goa during the 1980s were Fred Disko, Dr Bobby, Stephano, Paulino, Mackie, Babu, Laurent, Ray, Fred, Antaro, Lui, Rolf, Tilo, Pauli, Rudi, and Gil. Their music was eclectic in style but nuanced around instrument/dub spacey versions of tracks that evoked mystical, cosmic, psychedelic, political, DJs in Goa made special mixes by editing various versions of a track to make it longer, taking the stretch mix concept to new levels. Trip music for journeying to outdoors, trance dancing to mind-expanding music while high on hallucinogens was the Goa mantra, the night clubs were not fueled by alcohol, but by hash and acid. The result was an anarchistic, alternative counterculture of DIY psychedelic exploration driven by future rhythm machine music, by 1990–91 Goa was no longer under the radar and had become a hot destination for partying. As the scene grew bigger, Goa-style parties spread like an all over the world from 1993. Goa Trance as commercial scene began gaining traction in 1994. The golden age of the first wave of Goa Psy Trance as an agreed upon genre was between 1994–97
23.
Pop music
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Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid 1950s. The terms popular music and pop music are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular. Pop and rock were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they were used in opposition from each other. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other such as urban, dance, rock, Latin. Identifying factors include generally short to medium-length songs written in a format, as well as the common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, according to Pete Seeger, pop music is professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music, the music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. Pop music, as a genre, is seen as existing and developing separately, pop music continuously evolves along with the terms definition. The term pop song was first recorded as being used in 1926, Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pops earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience. Since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the meaning of non-classical mus, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles. Grove Music Online also states that, in the early 1960s pop music competed terminologically with beat music, while in the USA its coverage overlapped with that of rock and roll. From about 1967, the term was used in opposition to the term rock music. Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral. It is not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward, and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative. It is, provided from on high rather than being made from below, pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment, the lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions
24.
Contemporary R&B
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Contemporary R&B, also known as simply R&B, is a music genre that combines elements of rhythm and blues, soul, funk, pop, hip hop and dance. The genre features a record production style, drum machine-backed rhythms, an occasional saxophone-laced beat to give a jazz feel. Electronic influences are becoming a trend and the use of hip hop or dance-inspired beats are typical, although the roughness. Contemporary R&B vocalists are often known for their use of melisma, popularized by such as Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, Craig David, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston. That same year, Teddy Riley began producing R&B recordings that included hip hop influences and this combination of R&B style and hip hop rhythms was termed new jack swing and was applied to artists such as Bobby Brown, Keith Sweat, Al B. Guy, Jodeci and Bell Biv DeVoe, the style became less popular by the end of the 1990s, but later experienced a resurgence. In 1990 Mariah Carey released Vision of Love as her debut single and it was immensely popular peaking at number 1 in many worldwide charts including the Billboard Hot 100, and it propelled Mariahs carrier. The song is said to have popularized the use of melisma. During the mid-1990s, Whitney Houstons The Bodyguard, Original Soundtrack Album sold over 40 million copies becoming the best-selling soundtrack of all time. Janet Jacksons self-titled fifth studio album janet. which came after her historic multimillion-dollar contract with Virgin Records, sold over twenty million copies worldwide. Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey recorded several Billboard Hot 100 No.1 hits, including One Sweet Day, Carey also released a remix of her 1995 single Fantasy, with Ol Dirty Bastard as a feature, a collaboration format that was unheard of at this point. Carey, Boyz II Men and TLC released albums in 1994 and 1995—Daydream, II and CrazySexyCool. In the late 1990s, neo soul, which added 1970s soul influences to the hip hop soul blend, arose, led by such as DAngelo, Erykah Badu. Hill and Missy Elliott further blurred the line between R&B and hip hop by recording both styles, beginning in 1995, the Grammy Awards enacted the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album, with II by Boyz II Men becoming the first recipient. The award was received by TLC for CrazySexyCool in 1996, Tony Rich for Words in 1997, Erykah Badu for Baduizm in 1998. At the end of 1999, Billboard magazine ranked Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson as the first, simultaneously, in the second half of the 1990s, The Neptunes and Timbaland set influential precedence on contemporary R&B and hip hop music. R&B acts such as Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Usher, in 2001, Alicia Keys released Fallin as her debut single. It peaking at one on the Billboard Hot 100, Mainstream Top 40
25.
Music journalism
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Music journalism is media criticism and reporting about popular music topics, including pop music, rock music, and related styles. Journalists began writing music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on what is now thought of as classical music. An influential English 19th-century music critic, for example, was James William Davison of The Times, the composer Hector Berlioz also wrote reviews and criticisms for the Paris press of the 1830s and 1840s. The 1840s could be considered a point, in that music critics after the 1840s generally were not also practicing musicians. However, counterexamples include Alfred Brendel, Charles Rosen, Paul Hindemith, in the early 1980s, a decline in the quantity of classical criticism began occurring when classical-music criticism visibly started to disappear from the media. Also of concern in classical music journalism was how American reviewers can write about ethnic and folk music from other than their own, such as Indian ragas. The performers be treated as human beings and their music be treated as human activity rather than a mystical or mysterious phenomenon, the review should show an understanding of the musics cultural backgrounds and intentions. A key finding in a 2005 study of journalism in America was that the profile of the average classical music critic is a white, 52-year old male. Demographics indicated that the group was 74% male, 92% white, davis, one of the most respected voices of the craft, said he had been forced out after 26 years. Music writers only started treating pop and rock music seriously in 1964 after the breakthrough of the Beatles, one of the early music magazines in Britain, Melody Maker, complained in 1967 about how newspapers and magazines are continually hammering pop music. Melody Maker magazine advocated the new forms of pop music of the late 1960s, by 1999, the quality press was regularly carrying reviews of popular music gigs and albums, which had a key role in keeping pop in the public eye. As more pop music critics began writing, this had the effect of legitimating pop as an art form, as a result, in the world of pop music criticism, there has tended to be a quick turnover. In the realm of music, as in that of classical music. Frank Zappa declared that, Most rock journalism is people who cant write, interviewing people who cant talk, in the 2000s, online music bloggers began to supplement, and to some degree displace, music journalists in print media. In 2006, Martin Edlund of the New York Sun criticized the trend, arguing that while the Internet has democratized music criticism, slate magazine writer Jody Rosen discussed the 2000s-era trends in pop music criticism in his article The Perils of Poptimism. Rosen noted that much of the debate is centered on a perception that rock critics regard rock as normative … the standard state of popular music … to which everything else is compared. At a 2006 pop critic conference, attendees discussed their guilty pop pleasures, reconsidering musicians and genres which rock critics have dismissed as lightweight. Rosen stated that this new paradigm is called popism — or, more evocatively
26.
Dance Club Songs
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The Dance Club Songs chart is a weekly national survey of the songs that are most popular in U. S. dance clubs. It is compiled by Billboard exclusively from playlists submitted by nightclub disc jockeys who must apply, the current number-one song on the Dance Club Songs chart for the issue dated April 15,2017, is Lick Me Up by Tony Moran and Dani Toro featuring Zhana Roiya. Dance Club Songs has undergone several incarnations since its inception in 1974, originally a top-ten list of tracks that garnered the largest audience response in New York City discothèques, the chart began on October 26,1974 under the title Disco Action. The chart went on to feature playlists from various cities around the country from week to week, Billboard continued to run regional and city-specific charts throughout 1975 and 1976 until the issue dated August 28,1976, when a thirty-position National Disco Action Top 30 premiered. During the first half of the 1980s the chart maintained eighty slots until March 16,1985 when the Disco charts were splintered and renamed, two charts appeared, Hot Dance/Disco, which ranked club play, and Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales, which ranked 12-inch single sales. Only Hot Dance Club Songs still exists today and these stations are also a part of the electronically monitored panel that encompasses the Hot 100. Radio airplay is not limited to that counted on the Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart, during this time, Billboard rival publication Record World was the first to compile a dance chart which incorporated club play on a national level. Noted Billboard statistician Joel Whitburn has since adopted Record Worlds chart data from the weeks between March 29,1975 and August 21,1976 into Billboards club play history. For the sake of continuity, Record Worlds national chart is incorporated into both Whitburns Dance/Disco publication as well as the 1975 and 1976 number-ones lists, with the issue dated August 28,1976, Billboard premiered its own national chart and their data is used from this date forward. For the full list of all 100 All Time Top Dance Club Artists, both Enrique Iglesias and Dave Aude are tied with 14 number-ones on the chart, the most among male artists. Iglesias, however, is the male vocalist to accomplish this feat, while Aude is the only producer to achieve this milestone. Four acts have attained thirteen number-one songs, Whitney Houston, Kylie Minogue, Yoko Ono, Kylie Minogue became the first act to have two songs in the top three on March 5,2011. Her song Better than Today was number-one while Higher, a song by Taio Cruz on which Minogue features, was number three, the first 12-inch single made commercially available to the public was Ten Percent by Double Exposure in 1976. The first number one on Billboards Disco Action chart was Never Can Say Goodbye by Gloria Gaynor in 1974, the first number one on Billboards National Disco Action Top 30 was You Should Be Dancing by the Bee Gees in 1976. Beginning with the February 23,1991 issue, the dance chart became song specific, in all scenarios this was due to the tracks being included in film soundtrack albums. In 1978, four tracks from Thank God Its Friday, in 1980, madonna holds the record for the most chart hits, the most top-twenty hits, the most top-ten hits and the most total weeks at number one. The Trammps are the act to replace themselves at number one. The longest running number-ones on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart are Bad Luck by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes2 in 1975, both entries spent eleven weeks in the top spot
27.
Music video
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A music video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. There are also cases where songs are used in tie in marketing campaigns that allow them to more than just a song. Tie ins and merchandising could be used in toys or marketing campaigns for food, although the origins of music videos date back to musical short films that first appeared in the 1920s, they came into prominence in the 1980s when MTV based their format around the medium. Prior to the 1980s, these works were described by terms including illustrated song, filmed insert, promotional film, promotional clip, promotional video, song video. Music videos use a range of styles of contemporary videomaking techniques, including animation, live action filming, documentaries. Some music videos blend different styles, such as animation, music, combining these styles and techniques has become more popular because of the variation it presents to the audience. Many music videos interpret images and scenes from the songs lyrics, other music videos may be without a set concept, being merely a filmed version of the songs live performance. Product placement is a technique in music videos, exemplified by the appearance of the Beats Pill in numerous hip hop videos. In 1894, sheet music publishers Edward B, marks and Joe Stern hired electrician George Thomas and various performers to promote sales of their song The Little Lost Child. Using a magic lantern, Thomas projected a series of images on a screen simultaneous to live performances. This would become a form of entertainment known as the illustrated song. In 1926, with the arrival of many musical short films were produced. Vitaphone shorts featured many bands, vocalists and dancers, early 1930s cartoons featured popular musicians performing their hit songs on-camera in live-action segments during the cartoons. The early animated films by Walt Disney, such as the Silly Symphonies shorts and especially Fantasia, the Warner Brothers cartoons, even today billed as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, were initially fashioned around specific songs from upcoming Warner Brothers musical films. Live action musical shorts, featuring such performers as Cab Calloway, were also distributed to theaters. Blues singer Bessie Smith appeared in a short film called St. Louis Blues featuring a dramatized performance of the hit song. Numerous other musicians appeared in short musical subjects during this period, soundies, produced and released from 1940 to 1947, were musical films that often included short dance sequences, similar to later music videos
28.
Mark Romanek
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Mark Romanek is an American filmmaker whose directing work includes feature films, television, music videos and commercials. Romanek wrote and directed the 2002 film One Hour Photo and directed the 2010 film Never Let Me Go and his most notable music videos include Hurt, Closer, Cant Stop, Bedtime Story, and Scream. Romanek was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Shirlee and he credits seeing Stanley Kubricks 2001, A Space Odyssey at the age of nine with inspiring him to become a film director. He experimented with Super 8 and 16mm film as a teenager while attending New Trier High School, both teachers exposed students to works by significant figures of the American avant-garde cinema, such as Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, and Paul Sharits. Romanek subsequently attended Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, and graduated from its Roy H. Park School of Communications with a degree in cinema and photography. He served as assistant director for Brian De Palma on Home Movies. On set, Romanek met Keith Gordon, playing De Palmas alter ego, Gordon remembers Romaneks entrance into film production, Romanek released his first film, Static, in 1986. It was co-written with Gordon and starred Gordon as a man who claimed he had invented a television set capable of showing a picture of Heaven. After a few years writing screenplays, Romanek decided to focus on music videos and signed on with Satellite Films and his subsequent work has come to be regarded as among the best of the medium. He has worked with many top-selling recording artists from different genres of popular music, One of his notable videos was for the Nine Inch Nails song Closer. Its critical acclaim was only matched by its controversy, with many accusing the video as being disturbing, Romanek would again work with Nine Inch Nails for the song The Perfect Drug. Romanek was given his first Grammy Award for Best Short Form Video in 1996 for Scream, the video, which cost $7 million to make, is cited as one of the most expensive ever made. Romanek won his second Grammy two years later, again with Janet Jackson, for her video Got Til Its Gone. In 2002, Romanek shot a video for Audioslaves Cochise in which the band performed in the midst of a pyrotechnic display of the intensity usually seen only during fireworks finales. Romaneks 2002 music video for Johnny Cashs cover of Nine Inch Nails Hurt has been hailed by critics and fans alike as the most personal. The video was nominated for seven VMAs, winning one for cinematography, other Romanek videos that have received accolades and awards include the VMA winners Free Your Mind, Are You Gonna Go My Way, Rain, Devils Haircut,99 Problems, and Criminal. Many others have received nominations. In 1997, Romanek received the VMA Video Vanguard Award for his contribution to the medium
29.
Surrealism
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Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for its visual artworks and writings. The aim was to resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream, leader André Breton was explicit in his assertion that Surrealism was, above all, a revolutionary movement. Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities during World War I, the word surrealist was coined by Guillaume Apollinaire and first appeared in the preface to his play Les Mamelles de Tirésias, which was written in 1903 and first performed in 1917. The Dadaists protested with anti-art gatherings, performances, writings and art works, after the war, when they returned to Paris, the Dada activities continued. Meeting the young writer Jacques Vaché, Breton felt that Vaché was the son of writer. He admired the young writers anti-social attitude and disdain for established artistic tradition, later Breton wrote, In literature, I was successively taken with Rimbaud, with Jarry, with Apollinaire, with Nouveau, with Lautréamont, but it is Jacques Vaché to whom I owe the most. Back in Paris, Breton joined in Dada activities and started the literary journal Littérature along with Louis Aragon and they began experimenting with automatic writing—spontaneously writing without censoring their thoughts—and published the writings, as well as accounts of dreams, in the magazine. Breton and Soupault delved deeper into automatism and wrote The Magnetic Fields, continuing to write, they came to believe that automatism was a better tactic for societal change than the Dada form of attack on prevailing values. They also looked to the Marxist dialectic and the work of such theorists as Walter Benjamin, freuds work with free association, dream analysis, and the unconscious was of utmost importance to the Surrealists in developing methods to liberate imagination. They embraced idiosyncrasy, while rejecting the idea of an underlying madness, as Salvador Dalí later proclaimed, There is only one difference between a madman and me. Beside the use of analysis, they emphasized that one could combine inside the same frame, elements not normally found together to produce illogical. The more the relationship between the two juxtaposed realities is distant and true, the stronger the image will be−the greater its emotional power, the group aimed to revolutionize human experience, in its personal, cultural, social, and political aspects. They wanted to people from false rationality, and restrictive customs. Breton proclaimed that the aim of Surrealism was long live the social revolution. To this goal, at various times Surrealists aligned with communism and anarchism, in 1924 two Surrealist factions declared their philosophy in two separate Surrealist Manifestos. That same year the Bureau of Surrealist Research was established, leading up to 1924, two rival surrealist groups had formed. Each group claimed to be successors of a revolution launched by Guillaume Apollinaire, the other group, led by Breton, included Louis Aragon, Robert Desnos, Paul Éluard, Jacques Baron, Jacques-André Boiffard, Jean Carrive, René Crevel and Georges Malkine, among others. Goll and Breton clashed openly, at one point literally fighting, at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées, in the end, Breton won the battle through tactical and numerical superiority
30.
New Age
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The New Age is a term applied to a range of spiritual or religious beliefs and practices that developed in Western nations during the 1970s. Precise scholarly definitions of the New Age differ in their emphasis, although analytically often considered to be religious, those involved in it typically prefer the designation of spiritual and rarely use the term New Age themselves. Many scholars of the subject refer to it as the New Age movement, although others contest this term, such prominent occult influences include the work of Emanuel Swedenborg and Franz Mesmer, as well as the ideas of Spiritualism, New Thought, and Theosophy. Although the exact origins of the phenomenon remain contested, it is agreed that it developed in the 1970s and it expanded and grew largely in the 1980s and 1990s, in particular within the United States. By the start of the 21st century, the term New Age was increasingly rejected within this milieu, despite its highly eclectic nature, a number of beliefs commonly found within the New Age have been identified. Theologically, the New Age typically adopts a belief in a form of divinity which imbues all of the universe. There is thus a strong emphasis on the authority of the self. This is accompanied by a belief in a wide variety of semi-divine non-human entities, such as angels and masters, with whom humans can communicate. There is also a focus on healing, particularly using forms of alternative medicine. Those involved in the New Age have been primarily from middle, the New Age has generated criticism from established Christian organisations as well as modern Pagan and indigenous communities. From the 1990s onward, the New Age became the subject of research by scholars of religious studies. The New Age phenomenon has proved difficult to define, with much scholarly disagreement as to its scope, the scholars Steven J. Sutcliffe and Ingvild Sælid Gilhus have even suggested that it remains among the most disputed of categories in the study of religion. According to Hammer, this New Age was a fluid and fuzzy cultic milieu and he thus argued against the idea that the New Age could be considered a unified ideology or Weltanschauung, although he believed that it could be considered a more of less unified movement. Conversely, various scholars have suggested that the New Age is insufficiently homogenous to be regarded as a singular movement. There is no authority within the New Age phenomenon that can determine what counts as New Age. Many of those groups and individuals who could analytically be categorised as part of the New Age reject the term New Age in reference to themselves, some even express active hostility to the term. Rather than terming themselves New Agers, those involved in this milieu commonly describe themselves as spiritual seekers, other figures have argued that the sheer diversity of the New Age renders it too problematic for such use. In discussing the New Age, academics have varyingly referred to New Age spirituality and those involved in the New Age rarely consider it to be religion—negatively associating that term solely with organized religion—and instead describe their practices as spirituality
31.
Remedios Varo
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Remedios Varo Uranga was a Spanish-Mexican para-surrealist painter and anarchist. Born in Girona, Spain in 1908, she studied at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, during the Spanish Civil War she fled to Paris where she was greatly influenced by the surrealist movement. She met her husband, the French surrealist poet Benjamin Péret. She was forced into exile from Paris during the German occupation of France and she died in 1963, at the height of her career, from a heart attack, in Mexico City. She was born María de los Remedios Alicia Rodriga Varo y Uranga in Anglès and her birth helped her mother get over the death of another daughter, which is the reason behind the name. Varo’s father, Rodrigo Varo y Zajalvo, was a man who had a strong influence on his daughter’s artistic development. Varo would copy the blueprints he brought home from his job in construction and he encouraged independent thought and supplemented her education with science and adventure books, notably the novels of Alexandre Dumas, Jules Verne, and Edgar Allan Poe. As she grew older, he provided her with text on mysticism, Varo’s mother, Ignacia Uranga Bergareche, was born to Basque parents in Argentina. She was a devout Catholic and commended herself to the saint of Anglès. Her father was a engineer, and the family traveled the Iberian Peninsula. To keep Remedios busy during these trips, her father had her copy the technical drawings of his work with their straight lines, radii, and perspectives. As a child, she read much with favorite authors including Jules Verne, Edgar Allan Poe and she also read books about oriental philosophy and mysticism. Those first few years of her left an impression on her that would later show up in motifs like machinery, furnishing, artifacts. Varo was given the basic education deemed proper for young ladies of a good upbringing at a convent school - an experience that fostered her rebellious tendencies. Varo took a view of religion and rejected the religious ideology of her childhood education and instead clung to the liberal. The very first works of Varos, a self-portrait and several portraits of family members, in 1924, aged 15, she enrolled at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, in Madrid, the alma mater of Salvador Dalí and other renowned artists. Varo got her diploma as a teacher in 1930. At school, surrealistic elements were already apparent in her work, as it had arrived to Spain from France, while in Madrid, Varo had her initial introduction to Surrealism through lectures, exhibitions, films, and theater
32.
Frida Kahlo
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Frida Kahlo de Rivera, born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón, was a Mexican painter, who mostly painted self-portraits. Inspired by Mexican popular culture, she employed a naïve folk art style to explore questions of identity, postcolonialism, gender, class and her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. In addition to belonging to the post-revolutionary Mexicanidad movement, which sought to define a Mexican identity, born to a German father and a mestiza mother, Kahlo spent most of her childhood and adult life at her family home, La Casa Azul, in Coyoacán. She was left disabled by polio as a child, and at the age of eighteen was seriously injured in a traffic accident, prior to the accident, she had been a promising student headed for medical school, but in the aftermath had to abandon higher education. Although art had been her hobby throughout her childhood, Kahlo began to entertain the idea of becoming an artist during her long recovery and she was also interested in politics and in 1927 joined the Mexican Communist Party. Through the Party, she met the celebrated muralist Diego Rivera and they were married in 1928, and remained a couple until Kahlos death. The relationship was volatile due to both having affairs, they divorced in 1940, but remarried the following year. Kahlo spent the late 1920s and early 1930s traveling in Mexico, the exhibition was a success and was followed by another in Paris in 1939. While the French exhibition was successful, the Louvre purchased a painting from Kahlo. Throughout the 1940s, Kahlo continued to participate in exhibitions in Mexico and she also began to teach at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado La Esmeralda, and became a founding member of the Seminario de Cultura Mexicana. Kahlos always fragile health began to decline in the same decade. She had her first solo exhibition in Mexico in 1953, shortly before her death the year at the age of 47. Kahlo was mainly known as Riveras wife until the late 1970s, by the 1990s, she had become not only a recognized figure in art history, but also regarded as an icon for Chicanos, feminists, and the LGBTQ movement. Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón was born on July 6,1907 in Coyoacán, Kahlo stated that she was born at the family home, La Casa Azul, but according to the official birth registry, the birth took place at the nearby home of her maternal grandmother. Kahlos parents were photographer Guillermo Kahlo and Matilde Calderón y González, originally from Germany, Guillermo had immigrated to Mexico in 1891, after epilepsy caused by an accident ended his university studies. Although Kahlo claimed that her father was Jewish, he was in fact a Lutheran, Matilde was born in Oaxaca to an indigenous father and a mother of Spanish descent. In addition to Kahlo, the marriage produced daughters Matilde, Adriana and she also had two half-sisters from Guillermos first marriage, María Luisa and Margarita, but they were raised in a convent. Kahlo later described the atmosphere in her home as often very, very sad
33.
Leonora Carrington
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Leonora Carrington OBE was an English-born Mexican artist, surrealist painter, and novelist. She lived most of her life in Mexico City, and was one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movement of the 1930s. Leonora Carrington was also a member of the Women’s Liberation Movement in Mexico during the 1970s. Carrington was born in Clayton Green, Chorley, Lancashire, England and her father was a wealthy textile manufacturer, and her mother, Maureen, was Irish. She had three brothers, Patrick, Gerald, and Arthur, in 1927, at the age of ten, she saw her first Surrealist painting in a Left Bank gallery and later met many Surrealists, including Paul Éluard. Her father opposed her career as an artist, but her mother encouraged her and she returned to England and was presented at Court, but according to her, she brought a copy of Aldous Huxleys Eyeless in Gaza to read instead. In 1935, she attended the Chelsea School of Art in London for one year, some works are still hanging at James former family home, currently West Dean College in West Dean, West Sussex. When she returned to Britain, she enrolled in the art school established by the French modernist Amédée Ozenfant. In 1936, Leonora saw the work of the German surrealist Max Ernst at the International Surrealist Exhibition in London and was attracted to the Surrealist artist before she met him. In 1937, Carrington met Ernst at a party held in London, the artists bonded and returned together to Paris, where Ernst promptly separated from his wife. In 1938, leaving Paris, they settled in Saint Martin dArdèche in southern France, the new couple collaborated and supported each others artistic development. The two artists created sculptures of animals to decorate their home in Saint Martin dArdèche. In 1939, Carrington painted a portrait of Max Ernst, as a tribute to their relationship, the portrait was her first Surrealist work, and it was called The Inn of the Dawn. It is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the person in the painting is a cross between a male and a female, who is seated in a room with a rocking horse on the wall. Carrington had a an interest in animals, myth, and symbolism and this interest became stronger when she moved to Mexico and started a relationship with the émigré Spanish artist Remedios Varo. The two studied alchemy, the kabbalah, and the mytho-historical writings Popol Vuh- known today as Guatemala, with the outbreak of World War II Ernst, who was German, was arrested by the French authorities for being a hostile alien. With the intercession of Paul Éluard, and other friends, including the American journalist Varian Fry, soon after the Nazis invaded France, Ernst was arrested again, this time by the Gestapo, because his art was considered by the Nazis to be degenerate. He managed to escape and, leaving Carrington behind, fled to America with the help of Peggy Guggenheim, after Ernsts arrest, Carrington was devastated and fled to Spain
34.
Museum of Modern Art
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The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is identified as one of the largest and most influential museums of modern art in the world. The MoMA Library includes approximately 300,000 books and exhibition catalogs, over 1,000 periodical titles, the archives holds primary source material related to the history of modern and contemporary art. The idea for The Museum of Modern Art was developed in 1929 primarily by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and they became known variously as the Ladies, the daring ladies and the adamantine ladies. They rented modest quarters for the new museum in the Heckscher Building at 730 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and it opened to the public on November 7,1929, nine days after the Wall Street Crash. Abby had invited A. Conger Goodyear, the president of the board of trustees of the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. At the time, it was Americas premier museum devoted exclusively to art. One of Abbys early recruits for the staff was the noted Japanese-American photographer Soichi Sunami. Goodyear enlisted Paul J. Sachs and Frank Crowninshield to join him as founding trustees, Sachs, the associate director and curator of prints and drawings at the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, was referred to in those days as a collector of curators. Goodyear asked him to recommend a director and Sachs suggested Alfred H. Barr, under Barrs guidance, the museums holdings quickly expanded from an initial gift of eight prints and one drawing. Its first successful exhibition was in November 1929, displaying paintings by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne. Abbys husband was opposed to the museum and refused to release funds for the venture. Nevertheless, he donated the land for the current site of the museum, plus other gifts over time. During that time it initiated many more exhibitions of noted artists, the museum also gained international prominence with the hugely successful and now famous Picasso retrospective of 1939–40, held in conjunction with the Art Institute of Chicago. In its range of presented works, it represented a significant reinterpretation of Picasso for future art scholars, Boy Leading a Horse was briefly contested over ownership with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In 1941, MoMA hosted the exhibition, Indian Art of the United States. His brother, David Rockefeller, also joined the board of trustees in 1948. David subsequently employed the noted architect Philip Johnson to redesign the garden and name it in honor of his mother
35.
Marie Claire
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Marie Claire is an international monthly magazine for women. First published in France in 1937, various editions are published in countries and languages. The United States edition focuses on women around the world and several global issues, Marie Claire magazine also covers health, beauty, and fashion topics. Marie Claire was founded by Jean Prouvost and Marcelle Auclair and its first issue appeared in 1937, and it was distributed each Wednesday. In 1976, Prouvost retired and his daughter took over the magazine. One of the earliest international editions of Marie Claire is its German edition, the U. S. edition of the magazine was started by the Hearst Corporation, based in New York City, in 1994. Hearst has branch offices in France, Italy, and several locations in the United States such as Detroit, the West Coast, New England, the Midwest, the Southwest, and the Southeast. The Esquire Network reality television series Running In Heels follows three interns working in the NYC office of the magazine, Marie Claire UK is part of Time Inc. In 2006, it launched its website with segments on daily news, catwalk show, photographs and reports, fashion and beauty, buys of the day, daily horoscopes, and competitions. In Australia, Marie Claire magazine is part of Pacific Magazines, the Marie Claire website provides daily fashion, beauty, and lifestyle news to Yahoo.7. Marie Claire has also Arabic editions which are published in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, international editions of Marie Claire have also been discontinued in Estonia, Germany, India, Philippines, and Poland. Following a relaunch, since 2012, Marie Claire has been published in Japan under the name Marie Claire Style and this new format is offered as a free supplement in the Yomiuri Shimbun and distributed in wealthy suburbs of Japan. The magazine has now made available at subway kiosks for a cover price of 200 yen. In 2010, an Indonesian edition was launched, currently, Marie Claire publishes editions in over 35 countries on 5 continents. List of womens magazines List of Marie Claire cover models Marie Claire US Marie Claire UK Marie Claire Turkey American Marie Claire – magazine profile at Fashion Model Directory
36.
Re-Invention World Tour
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Re-Invention World Tour was the sixth concert tour by American singer-songwriter Madonna. It supported her studio album American Life and visited North America. Madonna was inspired to create the tour, after taking part in an art installation called X-STaTIC PRo=CeSS and she incorporated the images from the installation in the tour, whose name was in reality a dig at Madonnas critics. A number of songs were rehearsed for the tour, with twenty-four of them making the final setlist, the tour was divided into five segments, French Baroque–Marie Antoinette Revival, Military–Army, Circus–Cabaret, Acoustic and Scottish-Tribal. The costumes were developed by designer Arianne Phillips based on the concept of re-invention, the opening segment displayed performances with dance in general. Military segment displayed performances with the theme of warfare, Circus displayed light-hearted performances while the Acoustic segment performances were melancholy. The final Scottish segment had Madonna and her performers display energetic dance routines, the tour garnered positive reception from contemporary critics. However, fellow singer Elton John accused Madonna of lip-synching on the tour, Madonnas representatives denied the allegations and John later apologized. Re-Invention Tour was a commercial success, tickets were completely sold as soon as dates and venues for the tour were announced, prompting the organizers to add more dates. After it wrapped up, the tour was named as the highest grossing tour of 2004 and it won the Top Tour award as part of the 2004 Billboard Touring Awards. The tour was chronicled in a documentary titled Im Going to Tell You a Secret, a CD+DVD was also released along with the film. The Re-Invention World Tour was Madonnas sixth concert tour in support of her studio album American Life. In 2003, Madonna collaborated with photographer Steven Klein for an art project called X-STaTIC Pro=CeSS. The installation portrayed Madonna in different incarnations of her spiritual practices – from yogi, prophet, queen to freak, the publication was a worldwide success, leading to a number of exhibitions in New York, London, Paris, Düsseldorf, Berlin and Florence. After the exhibition was over, Madonna was inspired by the images from the exhibitions and decided to incorporate them into her then unplanned tour, the poster released for the tour used one of the images from the installation project. It featured Madonna in a seventeenth century style dress, crawling on all fours towards the camera, Klein later commented that, The thing is, I always saw Madonna as a performance artist. And I think what I wanted to portray was the process about how a performer arrives at their work. And the thing is, what she had talked about as well, is that before a concert, what she finds very interesting is the rehearsals, and she said that the process of making the concert became more intriguing than the final result
37.
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
38.
Nylon (magazine)
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Nylon is an American multi-platform media company and magazine that focus on pop culture and fashion. Its coverage includes art, beauty, music, design, celebrities, technology and its name references New York and London. Jamie Elden is the President and Chief Revenue Officer and Marc Luzzatto is the chairman, Nylon was co-founded in 1999 by Madonna Badger, Mark Blackwell, supermodel Helena Christensen, and husband and wife Marvin and Jaclynn Jarrett, with investment from Sam Waksal. According to Publisher Jaclynn Jarrett, the name was chosen because her husband Marvin just liked the sound of Nylon. After picking it, they realized the New York/London tie-in, which was congruous to Nylons editorial focus on these two cities, the first two letters are the initials for New York and the last three letters are the first three letters of London. The design of the magazine was intended to be hyper-legible, in answer to criticism of Ray-Guns chaotic layouts, the first issue was published on April 6,1999. In 2005, Nylon was bought by Pennsylvania businessman Don Hellinger, the following spring, Nylon and MySpace collaborated on their first International Music issue, making it freely available online for a time. Nylon TV was launched in 2006 with the creation of its own YouTube channel, Nylon partnered with MySpace in 2006 for its annual June/July music issue. Nine months later the magazine became available online in digital form in March 2007. Nylon released their June/July International Music and MySpace issue online for free viewing, Nylon teamed up with Live Nation Entertainment in 2008 to produce its first Nylon Music Tour, headlined by electro rockers She Wants Revenge. On their 10-year anniversary in 2009, Nylon made the April 1999 inaugural issue freely available online, including all articles, later that year, Nylon partnered with iTunes for its annual music issue, which included a free summer playlist download of 22 tracks. Nylon came together with YouTube in 2010 for its Young Hollywood issue, the partnership extended for the 2011 Young Hollywood issue as well. 2010 also brought the launch of Nylon Dailies, emails written by local writers every day in ten key American cities, in 2011, then-President Don Hellinger and then-CFO Jami Pearlman were charged with operating an illegal money transmission business, unrelated to Nylon. They subsequently pleaded guilty to a reduced charge, Nylon joined with Facebook in 2012 for its June/July music issue. 2012 also brought a Summer Music Tour, featuring Neon Trees, americas Next Top Model announced that Nylon would be its media partner for the shows 19th cycle. Nylon has established a social media presence. By early 2014, Nylon was active on Instagram, had over 700,000 Twitter followers, in May 2014, Nylon was acquired by Nylon Media, Inc. an affiliate of LA-based investor Marc Luzzatto through his team at Diversis Capital, LLC. The new venture also acquired FashionIndie, with FashionIndies founders, Beca Alexander and Daniel Saynt, maintaining their titles of editor-in-chief and creative director, Nylon is published in five Asian markets
39.
Lucy O'Brien
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Lucy OBrien is an author and journalist whose work focuses on women in music. In 1979, whilst attending a convent school in Southampton, she formed a punk band named the Catholic Girls. She left the band in 1980 to attend University in Leeds, at university she played with a number of bands before giving up performing to write instead. She has since written about the intimidating office culture at NME in the eighties, and her best-known contribution to the paper may be the notorious Youth Suicide cover article. During her early years at NME, OBrien also wrote for the feminist magazine, Spare Rib, in 1984 she co-wrote a cover story for them about women in the music industry. She was shocked to discover just how few women had record deals or were in the charts compared to men, after leaving NME, OBrien worked as Music Editor at the London listings magazine City Limits. By 1990, OBrien had gone freelance, going on to write for The Guardian and The Independent and her reputation as a writer and commentator was seriously established by the publication of her first book Dusty – a best-selling biography of British soul legend Dusty Springfield. The book was instrumental in the rediscovery and reappraisal of Springfields work and her next music biography, Annie Lennox, was also published in the United States. In 1995, OBrien took a look at female musicians in She Bop, The Definitive History Of Women In Rock. In 2007, OBrien wrote a biography of Madonna, entitled Madonna. This was published on 28 August 2007 in the UK and later, on 6 November 2007, OBriens books, notably She Bop, have led to frequent television appearances as an authority on rock music. These include appearances on Channel 4s Top Ten, franchise, and work for BBC2s The Ozone in the late nineties amongst others. OBrien also co-produced the Channel 4 documentary Righteous Babes, on rock and new feminism, however, if you look on her Myspace page she says she is Lucy Toothpaste. This is particularly given that she has gone on record to clarify that she isnt Lucy Toothpaste. London, Cassell,1995 The Year Skunk Broke in Evans, Liz, Girls Will Be Boys, Women Report On Rock, London, Pandora,1997 The Woman Punk Made Me in Sabin, Roger, Punk Rock, So What. London/New York, Routledge,1999 OBrien was also an interviewee in Helen Reddingtons book The Lost Women of Music, Female Musicians Of The Punk Era, which was published by Ashgate Publishing in 2007. OBrien, Lucy – She Bop, The definitive history of women in rock, pop, www. bookbuffet. com Inky Fingers, The NME Story, BBC2,4 July 2005. Sourced from online edition Official website Lucy OBrien interviewed by Sophy of Sista Yes
40.
Madonna: Like an Icon
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Madonna, Like an Icon is a biography by English author Lucy OBrien, chronicling the life of American singer Madonna. The book was released on 27 August 2007, by Bantam Press in the United Kingdom, Madonna, Like an Icon chronicles the life of the singer from her birth, up to the release of her eleventh studio album, Hard Candy, in 2008. Initially critical of her work, OBrien had become a fan of Madonna after seeing her perform on television for The Virgin Tour in 1985. From that point of time, the author followed Madonnas career closely, visited her concert tours, and collected interviews, magazines, the author then interviewed dancers, choreographers, musicians, and producers who worked with Madonna. After its release, the received a mixed response from critics. The biography is divided into three parts, the first part is named Baptism and tells about Madonnas birth in Detroit, Michigan, her early childhood, her time in New York, and her dance degree. It also talks in detail about the release of her first three studio albums—Madonna, Like a Virgin and True Blue—her marriage to actor Sean Penn, the middle part, named Confession, starts from the Like a Prayer era onwards where Madonna has become a global superstar. It continues up to the release of the coffee table book called Sex. The third part is called Absolution, and starts with Madonna giving birth to her daughter Lourdes and it continues with the release of Ray of Light and subsequent four studio albums, her worldwide concert tours, her marriage to Guy Ritchie and controversies surrounding her adoption from Malawi. It ends with the release of Madonnas 2008 album, Hard Candy, Lucy OBrien first came to like Madonna in 1985, when she saw the singer on television, performing on The Virgin Tour. She previously thought that Madonna was that cheesy pop bimbo in lycra, however, The Virgin Tour changed her opinion and by the time Madonnas 1985 film Desperately Seeking Susan was released, OBrien confessed that Madonna had won her admiration. The author had admired Madonnas lack of fear, and her ability to incorporate alternative culture, in 2005, OBrien started writing a book on Madonna, where she wanted to look at her life and work, as the artist was approaching the age of fifty. She believed that the public was eager to know the real-self of Madonna. According to her, the negative stereotype about the artist is that of a publicity-hungry, manipulative ball-breaker. I have always found her work clear and autobiographical, but her personality complex, however, due to the shifting images that Madonna presented, OBrien was confused as to how she can approach writing the biography. She found that analyzing Madonnas music was a helpful method, the author then interviewed dancers, choreographers, musicians, and producers who worked with Madonna. While talking to them, OBrien reflected on her own childhood and found parallels with Madonna—being born in a Catholic family and gradually becoming aware of the rise of feminism, Madonna, Like an Icon was released on 27 August 2007, in the United Kingdom by Bantam Press. The book cover was designed by Holly MacDonald, with an image of Madonna from 2002, during the premiere of her film and it was released more than a year later in the United States
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Soul music
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Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It combines elements of African-American gospel music, rhythm and blues, Soul music became popular for dancing and listening in the United States, where record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Soul also became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music, catchy rhythms, stressed by handclaps and extemporaneous body moves, are an important feature of soul music. Other characteristics are a call and response between the lead vocalist and the chorus and a tense vocal sound. The style also occasionally uses improvisational additions, twirls and auxiliary sounds, Soul music reflected the African-American identity and it stressed the importance of an African-American culture. The new-found African-American consciousness led to new styles of music, which boasted pride in being black, Soul music dominated the U. S. R&B chart in the 1960s, and many recordings crossed over into the pop charts in the U. S. By 1968, the music genre had begun to splinter. Some soul artists developed funk music, while other singers and groups developed slicker, more sophisticated, by the early 1970s, soul music had been influenced by psychedelic rock and other genres, leading to psychedelic soul. The United States saw the development of neo soul around 1994, there are also several other subgenres and offshoots of soul music. The term soul had been used among African-American musicians to emphasize the feeling of being an African-American in the United States, according to another source, Soul music was the result of the urbanization and commercialization of rhythm and blues in the 60s. The phrase soul music itself, referring to music with secular lyrics, is first attested in 1961. The term soul in African-American parlance has connotations of African-American pride, gospel groups in the 1940s and 1950s occasionally used the term as part of their name. The jazz style that derived from gospel came to be called soul jazz, important innovators whose recordings in the 1950s contributed to the emergence of soul music included Clyde McPhatter, Hank Ballard, and Etta James. Ray Charles is often cited as popularizing the genre with his string of hits starting with 1954s I Got a Woman. Singer Bobby Womack said, Ray was the genius and he turned the world onto soul music. Charles was open in acknowledging the influence of Pilgrim Travelers vocalist Jesse Whitaker on his singing style, little Richard and James Brown were equally influential. Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson are also acknowledged as soul forefathers. Cooke became popular as the singer of gospel group The Soul Stirrers
