1.
Wave-Gotik-Treffen
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Wave-Gotik-Treffen is an annual world festival for dark music and arts in Leipzig, Germany. 150+ bands and artists from various backgrounds play at venues throughout the city over 4 days on Whitsuntide. The festival also features several fairs with medieval, gothic and cultural merchandise, with 18,000 to 20,000 regular attendants, the WGT is one of the largest events of the Goth-, Cybergoth-, Steampunk and Rivethead- subcultures worldwide. A first attempt at a Treffen was made in 1987 in Potsdam, however, as the laws of the German Democratic Republic made this kind of event illegal, only a few hundred visitors attended. In 1991, after the re-unification of Germany, the first official Wave-Gotik-Treffen was held in the Eiskeller club in Leipzig, since then, the number of visitors has increased greatly. The largest installment of the WGT was the one in the year 2000 with over 300 acts, however, that years festival suffered financial collapse on the third day and had to be aborted. After all festival security guards, most bands and much of the staff had left, volunteer helpers. Contrary to police expectations, no rioting of any sort occurred, the major attraction of the Wave-Gotik Treffen is the band performances. The main market in the AGRA that runs the duration of the festival is perhaps the largest for the goth community anywhere in the world. Festival participants typically stay either in designated camping areas outside the Agra venue or in the hotels and hostels in, in order to stay at camping areas, participants must pay extra for an Obsorgekarte, which gives them access to the camping areas. All participants with a wrist band are entitled to ride local Leipzig public transportation, such as bus, tram, the date of the WGT varies from year to year. It is held on the German holiday weekend of Pfingsten, known in English as Pentecost or Whitsun,20 years Wave-Gotik-Treffen, Alexander Nym, Jennifer Hoffert,2010, ISBN 3-86211-037-0. List of gothic festivals List of electronic music festivals Official Website Wave-Gotik-Treffen Leipzig
2.
Black Forest
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The Black Forest is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany. It is bounded by the Rhine valley to the west and south and its highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 1,493 metres. The region is roughly oblong in shape with a length of 160 km, the Black Forest stretches from the High Rhine in the south to the Kraichgau in the north. In the west it is bounded by the Upper Rhine Plain, in the east it transitions to the Gäu, Baar, the Black Forest is the highest part of the South German Scarplands and much of it is densely wooded. From north to south the Black Forest extends for over 150 kilometres, attaining a width of up to 50 kilometres in the south, and up to 30 kilometres in the north. Tectonically the range forms a lifted fault block, which rises prominently in the west from the Upper Rhine Plain and it is here, in the west, where the highest mountains and the greatest local differences in height are found. The valleys are narrow and ravine-like, but rarely basin-shaped. The summits are rounded and there are also the remnants of plateaux, geologically the clearest division is also between east and west. Large areas of the eastern Black Forest, the lowest layer of the South German Scarplands composed of Bunter Sandstone, are covered by seemingly endless coniferous forest with their island clearings. The most common way of dividing the regions of the Black Forest is, however, until the 1930s, the Black Forest was divided into the Northern and Southern Black Forest, the boundary being the line of the Kinzig valley. The term High Black Forest referred to the highest areas of the South, the boundaries drawn were, however, quite varied. In 1931, Robert Gradmann called the Middle Black Forest the catchment area of the Kinzig and in the west the section up to the lower Elz, a pragmatic division, which is oriented not just on natural and cultural regions, uses the most important transverse valleys. In 1959, Rudolf Metz combined the earlier divisions and proposed a tripartite division himself. It is divided into six so-called major units and this division was refined and modified in several, successor publications up to 1967, each covering individual sections of the map. The mountain range was divided into three regions. The northern boundary of the Middle Black Forest in this classification runs south of the Rench Valley and its southern boundary varied with each edition. In 1998 the Baden-Württemberg State Department for Environmental Protection published a reworked Natural Region Division of Baden-Württemberg, to the southwest it is adjoined by the Black Forest Grinden and Enz Hills, along the upper reaches of the Enz and Murg, forming the heart of the Northern Black Forest. Their exit valleys from the range are all oriented towards the northwest
3.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
4.
Folk metal
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Folk metal is a fusion genre of heavy metal music and traditional folk music that developed in Europe during the 1990s. It is characterised by the use of folk instruments and, to a lesser extent. It also sometimes features soft instrumentation influenced by folk rock, the earliest folk metal bands were Skyclad from England and Cruachan from Ireland. It was not until 1994 and 1995 that other early contributors in the genre began to emerge from different regions of Europe, among these early groups, the German band Subway to Sally spearheaded a different regional variation that over time became known as medieval metal. Despite their contributions, folk metal remained little known with few representatives during the 1990s and it was not until the early 2000s when the genre exploded into prominence, particularly in Finland with the efforts of such groups as Finntroll, Ensiferum, Korpiklaani, Turisas, and Moonsorrow. The music of folk metal is characterised by its diversity with bands known to perform different styles of heavy metal music and folk music. A large variety of instruments are used in the genre with many bands consequently featuring six or more members in their regular line-ups. A few bands are known to rely on keyboards to simulate the sound of folk instruments. Lyrics in the genre deal with fantasy, mythology, paganism, history. The English band Skyclad was formed in 1990 after vocalist Martin Walkyier left his previous band, the song The Widdershins Jig from the debut album has been acclaimed as particularly significant and a certain first in the realms of Metal. Even with the departure of Martin Walkyier in 2001, Skyclad remains a folk metal group today after nearly two decades since their formation. In contrast, the Portuguese band Moonspell had a tenure in the genre. Their first release was the 1994 Under the Moonspell EP with music that featured folk, Cruachan were formed in 1992 in Dublin, Ireland. From the outset their intention was to mix the native Irish folk music of their country with the more extreme side of metal music. Their debut album Tuatha Na Gael was released in 1995 and was a folk metal album from start to finish. In the Italian book “FOLK METAL, Dalle Origini Al Ragnarok” and he acknowledges that Skyclad did have some folk parts in some songs before Cruachan however he goes on to say Cruachan used folk music as much as they used heavy metal music. Cruachan also used arrangements of folk songs and melodies, Skyclad wrote folk sounding parts. Another early contributor to folk metal is the Finnish group Amorphis and they formed in 1990 with their debut album, The Karelian Isthmus, following two years later
5.
Black metal
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Black metal is an extreme subgenre and subculture of heavy metal music. Common traits include fast tempos, a vocal style, heavily distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, raw recording, unconventional song structures. Artists often appear in corpse paint and adopt pseudonyms, during the 1980s, several thrash and death metal bands formed a prototype for black metal. This so-called first wave included bands such as Venom, Bathory, Mercyful Fate, Hellhammer, a second wave arose in the early 1990s, spearheaded by Norwegian bands such as Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum, Immortal, Emperor, Satyricon and Gorgoroth. The early Norwegian black metal scene developed the style of their forebears into a distinct genre, norwegian-inspired black metal scenes emerged throughout Europe and North America, although some other scenes developed their own styles independently. Some prominent Swedish bands spawned during this wave, such as Marduk, Nifelheim. Initially a synonym for Satanic metal, black metal is often met with hostility from mainstream culture, due to the actions, many artists express extreme anti-Christian and misanthropic views, advocating various forms of Satanism or ethnic paganism. In the 1990s, members of the scene were responsible for a spate of church burnings, there is also a small neo-Nazi movement within black metal, although it has been shunned by many prominent artists. Generally, black metal strives to remain underground, inaccessible to the mainstream, although contemporary black metal typically refers to the Norwegian style with shrieking vocals and raw production, the term has also been applied to bands with widely differing sounds. Norwegian-inspired black metal guitarists usually favor high-pitched or trebly guitar tones, the guitar is usually played with fast, un-muted tremolo picking. Guitarists often use dissonance—along with specific scales, intervals and chord progressions—to create a sense of dread, the tritone, or flat-fifth, is often used. Guitar solos and low guitar tunings are rare in black metal, the bass guitar is seldom used to play stand-alone melodies. It is not uncommon for the bass to be muted against the guitar, some newer black metal bands began raising their production quality and introducing additional instruments such as synthesizers and even orchestras. The drumming is usually fast and relies on double-bass and blast beats to maintain tempos that can sometimes approach 300 beats per minute and these fast tempos require great skill and physical stamina, typified by black metal drummers Frost and Hellhammer. Even still, authenticity is still prioritized over technique and this professionalism has to go, insists well-respected drummer and metal historian Fenriz of Darkthrone. I want to de-learn playing drums, I want to play primitive and simple, I dont want to play like a drum solo all the time, Black metal songs often stray from conventional song structure and often lack clear verse-chorus sections. Instead, many black metal songs contain lengthy and repetitive instrumental sections, the Greek style—established by Rotting Christ, Necromantia and Varathron—has more traditional heavy metal and death metal traits than Norwegian black metal. Traditional black metal bands tend to favor raspy, high-pitched vocals which include such as shrieking, screaming, and snarling
6.
Progressive metal
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Whilst the genre emerged towards the late-1980s, it was not until the 1990s that progressive metal achieved commercial success. On the other side of the spectrum, some rock bands such as King Crimson, Uriah Heep. Rush songs such as Bastille Day, Anthem, By-Tor And The Snow Dog,2112, The Fountain of Lamneth, another early practitioner of heavy metal were Lucifers Friend. Night Sun was also a band who mixed heavy metal with progressive rock tones. However, progressive metal did not develop into a genre of its own until the mid-1980s, the result can be described as music that combined a progressive rock mentality with heavy metal sounds. Among the early flagship bands for progressive metal, each had a different vibe. Fates Warning were one of the most aggressive and heavy sounding and their 1989 album Perfect Symmetry broke away from their NWOBHM influenced sound and became the mold for early progressive metal that Dream Theater would expand on. Crimson Glorys music, featuring tight dual-lead harmonies and soaring vocals would be displayed prominently on their self titled debut, as well as in the follow-up and it also contained the song Lonely, which was their first hit single and music video. According to AllMusic, progressive metal at the time was fairly underground, though progressive metal was, and has remained, primarily an album-oriented genre, this mainstream exposure increased the genres profile, and opened doors for other bands. Ayreon stayed with the prog metal themes, but mixed them with many other influences, such as rock opera, folk music. Pain of Salvation experimented with progressive rock and progressive metal, made extensive use of polyrhythms, and abruptly switched between calm and heavy passages. Seventh Wonder stayed within the metal mold, but had a larger focus on melody than most other progressive metal bands. Symphony X married progressive elements to power metal and classical music, tool and Karnivool created a more modern style by combining alternative metal elements and odd time signatures. Porcupine Tree began as a rock band, but then developed a progressive metal sound with 2002s In Absentia. Mastodon also combined progressive metal with sludge elements, many bands also started to experiment with more extreme subgenres of metal music, as have Meshuggah, whose distinctive sound has spawned the djent movement within progressive metal. In Japan, Sigh incorporated jazz and classical influences in black metal, while Dir En Grey, formerly a visual kei band, in Israel, Orphaned Land mixed progressive metal with local folk music, with guitarist Yossi Sassi playing a bouzouki as well as a guitar. Progressive metal can be broken down into many sub-genres corresponding to other styles of music that have influenced progressive metal groups. For example, two bands that are identified as progressive metal, Kings X and Opeth, are at opposite ends of the sonic spectrum to one another
7.
Symphonic metal
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Keyboards reminiscent of power metal also sometimes feature. The main musical influences on symphonic metal are early gothic metal, power metal, music workstation keyboards and orchestras are often the focal point of the music, which, in essence, distinguishes the subgenre from other metal subgenres. Other instruments including guitars, bass and drums typically play relatively simple parts in contrast to the complex and this is particularly characteristic of less-known bands on tighter budgets. This is particularly characteristic of bands that feature deeper and more complex arrangements that would be difficult for one or even two keyboardists to reproduce in a live performance. It is more difficult to generalise about the guitar and bass work found in this style, songs are often highly atmospheric, though more upbeat than those of other metal subgenres, even songs with morbid themes routinely feature prominent major-key fanfares. Particularly central to creating mood and atmosphere is the choice of keyboard sounds, lyrics cover a broad range of topics. As with two of symphonic metals otherwise most dissimilar influences, power metal and opera, fantasy and mythological themes are common, concept albums styled after operas or epic poems are not uncommon. Bands in this genre often feature a lead vocalist, most commonly a soprano. There is sometimes a second, male vocalist, as is common in gothic metal. Growling, death-metal-style vocals are not unknown, but tend to be used less frequently than in other genres that make use of this vocal style. Further backup up to and including a choir is sometimes employed. It is very common for bands, almost exclusively female-fronted bands, the operatic style is not exclusively tied to symphonic metal, and also appears in avant-garde metal, progressive metal, gothic metal and melodic metal. Also in the late 80s the Dutch band The Gathering started to make Symphonic metal songs, one of the earliest symphonic metal songs was Dies Irae by American thrash metal group Believer. Appearing on their 1990 album Sanity Obscure foreshadowed the approach used by the bands Therion. Another key early influence was Finnish progressive metal band Waltaris album Yeah, death Metal Symphony in Deep C. Following this, operatic vocals, classical instrumentation, and progressive elements became a staple in Dark Tranquillitys sound. In mid-1996 Rage released Lingua Mortis, the bands first collaboration with the Prague Symphony Orchestra, Nightwish and Within Temptation released their first albums in 1997, which were heavily inspired by Therions symphonic turn. Haggard, which started as a death metal band, had released some demos and EPs some years ago using only their death metal style
8.
Finsterforst
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Finsterforst is a German folk-metal band from Schwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg, whose lyrical themes deal with nature, German myths, and fantasy worlds. Formed in 2004, the group has released three studio albums, one extended play and one compilation album. Finsterforst means dark forest and it is a reference to Schwarzwald, besides the usual line-up of instruments used in metal, the bands sound relies heavily on accordion melodies, with the occasional use of instruments, such as the tin whistle and the oboe. The bands genre is often dubbed pagan metal because of its use of harsh vocals, Cryptic Forest is a German black-metal band from Schwarzwald, Baden-Württemberg that is related to Finsterforst. Several band members play in both bands, the band was formed at the end of the year 2004 by Tobias Weinreich, Sebastian AlleyJazz Scherrer, Simon Schillinger and Marco Schomas. Because the line-up was not complete, the decided to focus on songwriting. Since the band felt it needed a real accordion-player, Johannes Joseph joined the line-up in the spring of 2005, followed by rhythm guitarist David Schuldis in October the same year. In spite of missing a drummer, the band booked Iguana Studios in Buchheim, Baden-Württemberg, the songs were released as the Wiege der Finsternis EP in March 2006. In October 2006, drummer Cornelius Wombo Heck joined the line-up, in February and March 2007, the band re-entered Iguana Studios to record its début album, Weltenkraft, which was released in July through World Chaos Productions. The bands second full-length album. zum Tode hin was recorded in July 2008 at Iguana Studios and was released through the German label Einheit Produktionen on 27 February 2009. At the end of November 2009, the announced the departure of Schomas, and that it was searching for a new singer. In May 2010, the band released Urwerk, a two-disc re-release of its first EP, on 28 September 2012, it was confirmed that the band had signed a new record deal with the Austrian record label Napalm Records. On 26 November 2012, the album Rastlos was released worldwide to positive reviews, for 2014, theres an announcement for a European Tour called Trolls in the Forest bring Kaos over Europe, together with Trollfest and Cryptic Forest. Early 2015 Finsterforst will release their new studio album Mach Dich Frei, releasing on January 23 in Germany/Austria/Switzerland, January 30 in the rest of Europe and on February 10 in North America. Peter Hamm – live guitars In the beginning, in 2003, a couple of songs came to life, but the project was later put on ice because Schillingers writing focus was resting on his other band Finsterforst at the time. The EP called Dawn of the eclipse was released in 2011, in August 2013, the debut album Ystyr was released on the German label Einheit Produktionen and a European Tour together with Trollfest and Finsterforst was announced for 2014. List of folk-metal bands List of Napalm Records artists Music of Germany Database, Finsterforst. de, the bands official website Finsterforst at AllMusic
9.
Germans
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Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe, who share a common German ancestry, culture and history. German is the mother tongue of a substantial majority of ethnic Germans. The English term Germans has historically referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages, before the collapse of communism and the reunification of Germany in 1990, Germans constituted the largest divided nation in Europe by far. Ever since the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation within the Holy Roman Empire, of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, roughly 80 million consider themselves Germans. Thus, the number of Germans lies somewhere between 100 and more than 150 million, depending on the criteria applied. Today, people from countries with German-speaking majorities most often subscribe to their own national identities, the German term Deutsche originates from the Old High German word diutisc, referring to the Germanic language of the people. It is not clear how commonly, if at all, the word was used as an ethnonym in Old High German, used as a noun, ein diutscher in the sense of a German emerges in Middle High German, attested from the second half of the 12th century. The Old French term alemans is taken from the name of the Alamanni and it was loaned into Middle English as almains in the early 14th century. The word Dutch is attested in English from the 14th century, denoting continental West Germanic dialects, while in most Romance languages the Germans have been named from the Alamanni, the Old Norse, Finnish and Estonian names for the Germans were taken from that of the Saxons. In Slavic languages, the Germans were given the name of němьci, originally with a meaning foreigner, the English term Germans is only attested from the mid-16th century, based on the classical Latin term Germani used by Julius Caesar and later Tacitus. It gradually replaced Dutch and Almains, the latter becoming mostly obsolete by the early 18th century, the Germans are a Germanic people, who as an ethnicity emerged during the Middle Ages. Originally part of the Holy Roman Empire, around 300 independent German states emerged during its decline after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ending the Thirty Years War and these states eventually formed into modern Germany in the 19th century. The concept of a German ethnicity is linked to Germanic tribes of antiquity in central Europe, the early Germans originated on the North German Plain as well as southern Scandinavia. By the 2nd century BC, the number of Germans was significantly increasing and they began expanding into eastern Europe, during antiquity these Germanic tribes remained separate from each other and did not have writing systems at that time. In the European Iron Age the area that is now Germany was divided into the La Tène horizon in Southern Germany and the Jastorf culture in Northern Germany. By 55 BC, the Germans had reached the Danube river and had either assimilated or otherwise driven out the Celts who had lived there, and had spread west into what is now Belgium and France. Conflict between the Germanic tribes and the forces of Rome under Julius Caesar forced major Germanic tribes to retreat to the east bank of the Rhine, in Roman-held territories with Germanic populations, the Germanic and Roman peoples intermarried, and Roman, Germanic, and Christian traditions intermingled. The adoption of Christianity would later become an influence in the development of a common German identity
10.
Album
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Album, is a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item on CD, record, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century, first as books of individual 78rpm records, vinyl LPs are still issued, though in the 21st century album sales have mostly focused on compact disc and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format used from the late 1970s through to the 1990s alongside vinyl, an album may be recorded in a recording studio, in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places. Recording may take a few hours to years to complete, usually in several takes with different parts recorded separately. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed live, the majority of studio recordings contain an abundance of editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at times while listening to the other parts using headphones. Album covers and liner notes are used, and sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, historically, the term album was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage the word was used for collections of pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, the LP record, or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. It was adopted by the industry as a standard format for the album. Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, the term album had been carried forward from the early nineteenth century when it had been used for collections of short pieces of music. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, as part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some commenters have declared that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album. Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as mini-albums or EPs, Albums such as Tubular Bells, Amarok, Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Yess Close to the Edge, include fewer than four tracks. There are no rules against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as albums. These are known as box sets, material is stored on an album in sections termed tracks, normally 11 or 12 tracks. A music track is a song or instrumental recording. The term is associated with popular music where separate tracks are known as album tracks. When vinyl records were the medium for audio recordings a track could be identified visually from the grooves
11.
Extended play
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An extended play is a musical recording that contains more tracks than a single, but is usually unqualified as an album or LP. EPs generally do not contain as many tracks as albums, and are considered less expensive, an EP originally referred to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play and LP, but it is now applied to mid-length CDs and downloads as well. Ricardo Baca of The Denver Post said, EPs—originally extended-play single releases that are shorter than traditional albums—have long been popular with punk, in the United Kingdom, the Official Chart Company defines a boundary between EP and album classification at 25 minutes of length or four tracks. EPs were released in various sizes in different eras, the earliest multi-track records, issued around 1919 by Grey Gull Records, were vertically cut 78 rpm discs known as 2-in-1 records. These had finer than usual grooves, like Edison Disc Records, by 1949, when the 45 rpm single and 33 1⁄3 rpm LP were competing formats, seven-inch 45 rpm singles had a maximum playing time of only about four minutes per side. Partly as an attempt to compete with the LP introduced in 1948 by rival Columbia, RCA Victor introduced Extended Play 45s during 1952. Their narrower grooves, achieved by lowering the levels and sound compression optionally. These were usually 10-inch LPs split onto two seven-inch EPs or 12-inch LPs split onto three seven-inch EPs, either separately or together in gatefold covers. This practice became less common with the advent of triple-speed-available phonographs. Some classical music albums released at the beginning of the LP era were distributed as EP albums—notably the seven operas that Arturo Toscanini conducted on radio between 1944 and 1954. These opera EPs, originally broadcast on the NBC Radio network and manufactured by RCA, in the 1990s, they began appearing on compact discs. During the 1950s, RCA published several EP albums of Walt Disney movies and these usually featured the original casts of actors and actresses. Each album contained two seven-inch records, plus an illustrated booklet containing the text of the recording, so that children could follow along by reading. Some of the titles included Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and what was then a recent release, because of the popularity of 7 and other formats, SP records became less popular and the production of SPs in Japan was suspended in 1963. In the 1950s and 1960s, EPs were usually compilations of singles or album samplers and were played at 45 rpm on seven-inch discs. Record Retailer printed the first EP chart in 1960, the New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Disc and Music Echo and the Record Mirror continued to list EPs on their respective singles charts. The Beatles Twist and Shout outsold most singles for some weeks in 1963, when the BBC and Record Retailer commissioned the British Market Research Bureau to compile a chart it was restricted to singles and EPs disappeared from the listings. In the Philippines, seven-inch EPs marketed as mini-LPs were introduced in 1970, with tracks selected from an album and this mini-LP format also became popular in America in the early 1970s for promotional releases, and also for use in jukeboxes
12.
Electric guitar
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The vibrations of the strings are sensed by a pickup, of which the most common type is the magnetic pickup, which uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction. The signal generated by a guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is plugged into a guitar amplifier before being sent to a loudspeaker. The output of a guitar is an electric signal. Invented in 1931, the electric guitar was adopted by jazz guitarists. Early proponents of the guitar on record included Les Paul, Lonnie Johnson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, T-Bone Walker. During the 1950s and 1960s, the guitar became the most important instrument in pop music. It has evolved into an instrument that is capable of a multitude of sounds and styles in genres ranging from pop and rock to country music, blues and jazz. It served as a component in the development of electric blues, rock and roll, rock music, heavy metal music. Electric guitar design and construction vary greatly in the shape of the body and the configuration of the neck, bridge, Guitars may have a fixed bridge or a spring-loaded hinged bridge that lets players bend the pitch of notes or chords up or down or perform vibrato effects. The sound of a guitar can be modified by new playing techniques such as string bending, tapping, hammering on, using audio feedback, in a small group, such as a power trio, one guitarist switches between both roles. In larger rock and metal bands, there is often a rhythm guitarist, many experiments at electrically amplifying the vibrations of a string instrument were made dating back to the early part of the 20th century. Patents from the 1910s show telephone transmitters were adapted and placed inside violins, hobbyists in the 1920s used carbon button microphones attached to the bridge, however, these detected vibration from the bridge on top of the instrument, resulting in a weak signal. With numerous people experimenting with electrical instruments in the 1920s and early 1930s, Electric guitars were originally designed by acoustic guitar makers and instrument manufacturers. Some of the earliest electric guitars adapted hollow-bodied acoustic instruments and used tungsten pickups, the first electrically amplified guitar was designed in 1931 by George Beauchamp, the general manager of the National Guitar Corporation, with Paul Barth, who was vice president. The maple body prototype for the one-piece cast aluminum frying pan was built by Harry Watson, commercial production began in late summer of 1932 by the Ro-Pat-In Corporation, in Los Angeles, a partnership of Beauchamp, Adolph Rickenbacker, and Paul Barth. In 1934, the company was renamed the Rickenbacker Electro Stringed Instrument Company, in that year Beauchamp applied for a United States patent for an Electrical Stringed Musical Instrument and the patent was issued in 1937. The Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts provided players a full 25 scale, with 17 frets free of the fretboard and it is estimated that fewer than 50 Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts were constructed between 1933 and 1937, fewer than 10 are known to survive today. The need for the guitar became apparent during the big band era as orchestras increased in size, particularly when acoustic guitars had to compete with large
13.
Bass (guitar)
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The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb, by plucking, slapping, popping, strumming, tapping, thumping, or picking with a plectrum, often known as a pick. The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to a guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length. The four-string bass, by far the most common, is tuned the same as the double bass. The bass guitar is an instrument, as it is notated in bass clef an octave higher than it sounds to avoid excessive ledger lines. Like the electric guitar, the guitar has pickups and it is plugged into an amplifier and speaker on stage, or into a larger PA system using a DI unit. Since the 1960s, the guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music as the bass instrument in the rhythm section. While types of basslines vary widely from one style of music to another, many styles of music utilise the bass guitar, including rock, heavy metal, pop, punk rock, country, reggae, gospel, blues, symphonic rock, and jazz. It is often a solo instrument in jazz, jazz fusion, Latin, funk, progressive rock and other rock, the adoption of a guitar form made the instrument easier to hold and transport than any of the existing stringed bass instruments. The addition of frets enabled bassists to play in more easily than on acoustic or electric upright basses. Around 100 of these instruments were made during this period, around 1947, Tutmarcs son, Bud, began marketing a similar bass under the Serenader brand name, prominently advertised in the nationally distributed L. D. Heater Music Company wholesale jobber catalogue of 1948, however, the Tutmarc family inventions did not achieve market success. In the 1950s, Leo Fender, with the help of his employee George Fullerton and his Fender Precision Bass, which began production in October 1951, became a widely copied industry standard. This split pickup, introduced in 1957, appears to have been two mandolin pickups, the pole pieces and leads of the coils were reversed with respect to each other, producing a humbucking effect. Humbucking is a design that electrically cancels the effect of any AC hum, the Fender Bass was a revolutionary new instrument, which could be easily transported, and which was less prone to feedback when amplified than acoustic bass instruments. Monk Montgomery was the first bass player to tour with the Fender bass guitar, roy Johnson, and Shifty Henry with Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five, were other early Fender bass pioneers. Bill Black, playing with Elvis Presley, switched from bass to the Fender Precision Bass around 1957. The bass guitar was intended to appeal to guitarists as well as upright bass players, following Fenders lead, in 1953, Gibson released the first short scale violin-shaped electric bass with extendable end pin, allowing it to be played upright or horizontally. In 1959 these were followed by the more conventional-looking EB-0 Bass, the EB-0 was very similar to a Gibson SG in appearance
14.
Drum kit
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A drum kit consists of a mix of drums and idiophones most significantly cymbals but also including the woodblock and cowbell. In the 2000s, some also include electronic instruments and both hybrid and entirely electronic kits are used. If some or all of them are replaced by electronic drums, the drum kit is usually played while seated on a drum stool or throne. The drum kit differs from instruments that can be used to produce pitched melodies or chords, even though drums are often placed musically alongside others that do, such as the piano or guitar. The drum kit is part of the rhythm section used in many types of popular and traditional music styles ranging from rock and pop to blues. Other standard instruments used in the section include the electric bass, electric guitar. Many drummers extend their kits from this pattern, adding more drums, more cymbals. Some performers, such as some rockabilly drummers, use small kits that omit elements from the basic setup, some drum kit players may have other roles in the band, such as providing backup vocals, or less commonly, lead vocals. Thus, in an early 1800s orchestra piece, if the called for bass drum, triangle and cymbals. In the 1840s, percussionists began to experiment with foot pedals as a way to them to play more than one instrument. In the 1860s, percussionists started combining multiple drums into a set, the bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, and other percussion instruments were all played using hand-held drum sticks. Double-drumming was developed to one person to play the bass and snare with sticks. With this approach, the drum was usually played on beats one. This resulted in a swing and dance feel. The drum set was referred to as a trap set. By the 1870s, drummers were using an overhang pedal, most drummers in the 1870s preferred to do double drumming without any pedal to play multiple drums, rather than use an overhang pedal. Companies patented their pedal systems such as Dee Dee Chandler of New Orleans 1904–05, liberating the hands for the first time, this evolution saw the bass drum played with the foot of a standing percussionist. The bass drum became the central piece around which every other percussion instrument would later revolve and it was the golden age of drum building for many famous drum companies, with Ludwig introducing
15.
Accordion
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Accordions are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type, colloquially referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist, the concertina and bandoneón are related, the harmonium and American reed organ are in the same family. The instrument is played by compressing or expanding the bellows while pressing buttons or keys, causing pallets to open and these vibrate to produce sound inside the body. Valves on opposing reeds of each note are used to make the instruments reeds sound louder without air leaking from each reed block. The performer normally plays the melody on buttons or keys on the manual. The accordion is widely spread across the world, nevertheless, in Europe and North America, some popular music acts also make use of the instrument. Additionally, the accordion is used in cajun, zydeco, jazz music. The piano accordion is the official city instrument of San Francisco, the oldest name for this group of instruments is harmonika, from the Greek harmonikos, meaning harmonic, musical. Today, native versions of the accordion are more common. These names refer to the type of accordion patented by Cyrill Demian, accordions have many configurations and types. Similar to a bow, the production of sound in an accordion is in direct proportion to the motion of the player. The bellows is located between the right- and left-hand manuals, and is made from pleated layers of cloth and cardboard, with added leather and metal. It is used to pressure and vacuum, driving air across the internal reeds and producing sound by their vibration. These boxes house reed chambers for the right- and left-hand manuals, each side has grilles in order to facilitate the transmission of air in and out of the instrument, and to allow the sound to better project. The grille for the manual is usually larger and is often shaped for decorative purposes. The right-hand manual is used for playing the melody and the left-hand manual for playing the accompaniment. The manual mechanism of the instrument either enables the air flow, or disables it, the different types have varying components. All instruments have reed ranks of some format, the most typical accordion is the piano accordion, which is used for many musical genres
16.
Tin whistle
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It is a type of fipple flute, putting it in the same class as the recorder, Native American flute, and other woodwind instruments that meet such criteria. A tin whistle player is called a tin whistler or simply a whistler, the tin whistle is closely associated with Celtic music. The tin whistle in its form is from a wider family of fipple flutes which have been seen in many forms. In Europe such instruments have a long and distinguished history and take various forms, most widely known of these are the recorder, tin whistle, Flabiol, Txistu and tabor pipe. Almost all primitive cultures had a type of flute and is most likely the first pitched flute type instrument in existence. A possible Neanderthal fipple flute from Slovenia dates from 81, 000-53,000 B. C. a German flute from 35,000 years ago, written sources that describe a fipple-type flute include the Roman and Greek aulos and tibia. In the early Middle Ages peoples of northern Europe were playing the instrument as seen in 3rd-century British bone flutes, and Irish Brehon Law describes flute like instrument. The term flageolet is still preferred by modern tin whistle who feel this better describes the instrument, as this characterises a wide variety of fipple flutes. Down to 1900, they were marketed as Clarke London Flageolets or Clarke Flageolets. The whistles fingering system is similar to that of the six hole, simple system English flutes, the six hole, diatonic system is also used on baroque flutes, and was of course well known before Robert Clarke began producing his tin whistles. Clarkes first whistle, the Meg, was pitched in high A and was made in other keys suitable for Victorian parlour music. The company showed the whistles in The Great Exhibition of 1851, the Clark tin whistle is voiced somewhat on an organ-pipe with a flattened tube forming the lip of the fipple mouthpiece and is usually made from rolled tin sheet or brass. Manufactured tin whistles became available no earlier than 1840, and were mass-produced, as the penny whistle was generally considered a toy it has been suggested that children or street musicians were paid a penny by those who heard them playing the whistle. However, in reality the instrument was so called because it could be purchased for a penny, the name tin-whistle was also coined as early as 1825. But neither the tin whistle nor the penny whistle name seems to have been common until the 20th century, the instrument became popular in several musical traditions namely, English, Scottish, Irish and American traditional music. Due to its affordability the tin whistle was a household instrument. In the second half of the 19th century, some manufacturers such as Barnett Samuel. These had a brass tube
17.
Oboe
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Oboes /ˈoʊboʊ/ OH-boh are a family of double reed woodwind musical instruments. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range, oboes are usually made of wood, but there are also oboes made of synthetic materials. A soprano oboe measures roughly 65 cm long, with keys, a conical bore. Sound is produced by blowing into the reed and vibrating a column of air, the distinctive oboe tone is versatile, and has been described as bright. When the term oboe is used alone, it is taken to mean the standard treble instrument rather than other instruments of the family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called a hautbois, hoboy. The spelling of oboe was adopted into English c.1770 from the Italian oboè, a musician who plays the oboe is called an oboist or simply an oboe player. In comparison to other woodwind instruments, the treble oboe is sometimes referred to as having a clear. The Sprightly Companion, a book published by Henry Playford in 1695, describes the oboe as Majestical and Stately. Humorously, the sound of the oboe is described in the play Angels in America as like that of a if the duck were a songbird. The rich timbre of the oboe is derived from its conical bore, as a result, oboes are readily audible over other instruments in large ensembles. The highest note of the oboe is a lower than the nominally highest note of the B♭ clarinet. Since the clarinet has a range of notes, the lowest note of the B♭ clarinet is significantly deeper than the lowest note of the oboe. Music for the oboe is written in concert pitch. Orchestras normally tune to a concert A played by the oboe, according to the League of American Orchestras, this is done because the pitch of the oboe is secure and its penetrating sound makes it ideal for tuning purposes. The pitch of the oboe is affected by the way in which the reed is made. The reed has a significant effect on the sound of the instrument, Variations in cane and other construction materials, the age of the reed, and differences in scrape and length all affect the pitch of the instrument. German and French reeds, for instance, differ in many ways, weather conditions such as temperature and humidity also affect the pitch
18.
Drum machine
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A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums, cymbals, other percussion instruments, and often basslines. Drum machines are most commonly associated with electronic music such as house music. They are usually used when session drummers are not available or if the production cannot afford the cost of a drummer. Also, many modern drum machines can also produce sounds, as well as allowing the user to compose unique drum beats. In the 2010s, most modern machines are sequencers with a sample playback or synthesizer component that specializes in the reproduction of drum timbres. The invention could produce sixteen different rhythms, each associated with a pitch, either individually or in any combination, including en masse. Received with considerable interest when it was introduced in 1932. The next generation of rhythm machines played only pre-programmed rhythms such as mambo, tango, Chamberlin Rhythmate In 1957 Californian Harry Chamberlin constructed a tape loop-based drum machine called the Chamberlin Rhythmate. It had 14 tape loops with a head that allowed playback of different tracks on each piece of tape. It contained a volume and a control and also had a separate amplifier with bass, treble, and volume controls. The tape loops were of real acoustic jazz drum kits playing different style beats, with additions to tracks such as bongos, clave, castanets. First commercial product – Wurlitzer Side Man In 1959 Wurlitzer released a drum machine called the Side Man. The Side Man was intended as an accompaniment for the Wurlitzer organ range. The Side Man offered a choice of 12 electronically generated, predefined rhythm patterns with variable tempos, the sound source was a series of vacuum tubes which created 10 preset electronic drum sounds. Combinations of these different sets of rhythms and drum sounds created popular rhythmic patterns of the day, e. g. waltzes and these combinations were selected by a rotary knob on the top of the Side Man box. The tempo of the patterns was controlled by a slider that increased the speed of rotation of the wiper arm, the Side Man had a panel of 10 buttons for manually triggering drum sounds, and a remote player to control the machine while playing from an organ keyboard. The Side Man was housed in a cabinet that contained the sound-generating circuitry. Raymond Scott In 1960, Raymond Scott constructed the Rhythm Synthesizer and, in 1963, scotts machines were used for recording his album Soothing Sounds for Baby series
19.
Austria
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Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.7 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, the territory of Austria covers 83,879 km2. The terrain is mountainous, lying within the Alps, only 32% of the country is below 500 m. The majority of the population speaks local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene. The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty, from the time of the Reformation, many northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. Following Napoleons defeat, Prussia emerged as Austrias chief competitor for rule of a greater Germany, Austrias defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary, Austria was thus the first to go to war in the July Crisis, which would ultimately escalate into World War I. The First Austrian Republic was established in 1919, in 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss. This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies, in 1955, the Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral, today, Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.7 million, is Vienna, other major urban areas of Austria include Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $43,724, the country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro currency in 1999. The German name for Austria, Österreich, meant eastern realm in Old High German, and is cognate with the word Ostarrîchi and this word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local dialect. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976, the word Austria is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century. Accordingly, Norig would essentially mean the same as Ostarrîchi and Österreich, the Celtic name was eventually Latinised to Noricum after the Romans conquered the area that encloses most of modern-day Austria, around 15 BC. Noricum later became a Roman province in the mid-first century AD, heers hypothesis is not accepted by linguists. Settled in ancient times, the Central European land that is now Austria was occupied in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes, the Celtic kingdom of Noricum was later claimed by the Roman Empire and made a province
20.
Trollfest
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Trollfest are a Norwegian folk metal band. The band released their first full-length album, Willkommen Folk Tell Drekka Fest, the album name translates roughly to Welcome Folk To The Drinking Feast in English. Their second album, Brakebein, was released by Omvina on 24 May 2006, the band performed at the 2007 Barther Metal Openair festival in Germany, which was their first-ever live appearance, in 2008 they played at the pagan metal Ragnarök Festival. Trollfest was formed in 2003 by John Espen Sagstad and Jostein Austvik, first album Willkommen Folk Tell Drekka Fest. was released in 2005, and the band followed up with the second album Brakebein in 2006. During the first years, TrollfesT never played live, and the first foray beyond the planning stage occurred in 2007 as one of the bands at the Ninth Barther Metal Open Air Festival. TrollfesT then went on to headline and play various festivals and concerts around Europe during 2007–08, including the Ragnarök, from October to November 2012, the band went on tour with Wintersun, Korpiklaani, Krampus and Varg for Heidenfest 2012. Trollfests third studio album, Villanden, was published in January 2009, in 2011 Trollfest signed with NoiseArt Records, and later that year En Kvest For Den Hellige Gral, the bands fourth studio album, was released. Trollfest announced their new album, Brumlebassen, which came out 24 August 2012, the bands sixth studio album Kaptein Kaos was released in April 2014. Following the release of Kaptein Kaos the band embarked on their first European headliner tour and their seventh studio album, Helluva was released in 2017. Most of Trollfests lyrics are written in the fictional Trollspråk, which is a mixture of Norwegian and German, the band is also known for their use of saxophones and accordions in their songs. TrollfesT – Promo Willkommen Folk Tell Drekka Fest
21.
Music of Germany
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Germany claims some of the most renowned composers, producers and performers of the world. Germany is the largest music market in Europe, and third largest in the world, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was among the composers who created the field of German opera. One of the most famous film score composers is Hans Zimmer, German popular music of the 20th and 21st century includes the movements of Neue Deutsche Welle, Disco, Metal/Rock, Punk, Pop rock (Herbert Grönemeyer and Indie. Famous female singers were Marlene Dietrich and Hildegard Knef, German Electronic music gained global influence, with Kraftwerk being a pioneer group in this genre. The Electro and Techno scene being internationally popular with Paul van Dyk, Germany hosts many large rock music festivals annually. The Rock am Ring festival and the Wacken Open Air are among the largest in the world, since about 1990 the new-old German capital Berlin has developed a diverse music and entertainment industry. After Latin-language religious music had dominated for centuries, in the 12th century to the 14th centuries, minnesingers, singing in German, minnesingers were aristocrats traveling from court to court who had become musicians, and their work left behind a vast body of literature, Minnelieder. Minnesingers and meistersingers could be considered parallels of French troubadours and trouvère, among the minnesingers, Hermann, a monk from Salzburg, deserves special note. He incorporated folk styles from the Alpine regions in his compositions and he made some primitive forays into polyphony as well. Walther von der Vogelweide and Reinmar von Hagenau are probably the most famous minnesingers from this period, Germans have played a leading role in the development of classical music. Many of the best classical musicians such as Bach, Händel, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart, Schumann, Brahms, Wagner, Mahler, or Schoenberg were German. He brought back some techniques and styles to his homeland, and within a hundred years, among the first of these composers was the organist Conrad Paumann. The largest summer festival for music in Germany is the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. Beginning in the 16th century, polyphony, or the intertwining of multiple melodies, Protestant chorales predominated, in contrast to Catholic music, chorale was vibrant and energetic. Composers included Dieterich Buxtehude, Heinrich Schütz and Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation, Luther happened to accompany his sung hymns with a lute, later recreated as the waldzither that became a national instrument of Germany in the 20th century. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts Die Zauberflöte is usually said to be the beginning of German-language opera, an earlier starting date for German opera, however, could be Heinrich Schützs Dafne from 1627. Schütz is said to be the first great German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach, in the 19th century, two figures were paramount in German opera, Carl Maria von Weber and Richard Wagner. Wagner introduced devices like the leitmotiv, a theme which recurs for important characters or ideas
22.
Blabbermouth.net
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Blabbermouth. net is a website dedicated to heavy metal and hard rock news, as well as album and music DVD reviews. Blabbermouth. net was founded and is run by Borivoj Krgin, the first version of the website was launched in March 2001, in October 2001, the record label Roadrunner Records began hosting it. Users can post comments to selected articles and album reviews. Founder Borivoj Krgin came up with the concept of Blabbermouth in January 2000, robert Kampf, a friend of Krgin who runs Century Media Records, was staying with Krgin in New York and set up a meeting with Gunter Ford of World Management. During the meeting, Ford suggested an idea for a heavy metal portal, a site which would offer news, merchandise, Ford wanted Kampf to be involved. Krgin disliked the idea and wished for a site that offered around-the-clock news, Krgin began researching how to develop and host his own website two months after the meeting. After a year Krgin felt comfortable going live, the initial primitive version of the site was launched on March 3,2001. In October of the same year Monte Conner, a friend of Krgin, and this way, Krgin could focus on Blabbermouth. nets content rather than the technical aspects involved in running a site. Blabbermouth. net is described by the London Free Press as a reliable industry, according to his own words, Krgin spends most of his time operating the site. When finding information relating to bands Krgin claims to search bands official websites, which are reported on immediately. Krgin supposedly sends e-mails and makes telephone calls daily to obtain new information, Blabbermouth. net has a submit news feature which has proved to be helpful to Krgin. When receiving a rumor he deems worthy of posting, Krgin will first research and contact people related to the band and its claimed that 90% of the information posted is either found online or is submitted directly to the website by bands, managers, labels or associated persons. Blabbermouth. net has been criticized by musicians and music industry persons for internet trolls, Krgin said he posts these articles to attract humorous comments from users, and as relief from the constant monotony of album news. Blabbermouth. net was visited by more than 1.2 million unique users each month, the busiest day so far was 298,000 unique visitors in a single 24-hour period over May 16,2010, due to the death of Ronnie James Dio. The second-busiest day was more than 200,000 unique visitors in a single 24-hour period, Blabbermouth. net is ranked as the 29,897 most trafficked Web sites according to Alexa. Prior to its recent change requiring users to log in with a Facebook account in order to post comments, Blabbermouth. net had more 101,000 registered users as of August 2011
23.
Encyclopaedia Metallum
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Encyclopaedia Metallum, The Metal Archives is a website which lists bands from various forms of heavy metal music. Encyclopaedia Metallum was described by Matt Sullivan of Nashville Scene as the Internets central database for all that is tr00 in the metal world, nevertheless, there are exceptions for bands which fall under disputed genres not accepted by the website. Encyclopaedia Metallum attempts to provide information on each band, such as a discography, logos, pictures, lyrics, line-ups, biography, trivia. The site also provides a system for submitting bands to the archives, the website is free of advertisements and is run completely independently. The Encyclopaedia Metallum was officially launched on July 17,2002 by two Canadians from Montreal using the pseudonyms HellBlazer and Morrigan, a couple years prior, HellBlazer had the idea of an encyclopedia for heavy metal and attempted to write each bands page using HTML. Although he gave up with that attempt, a fully automated site with contributions from its users was in the works. The site initially went live early in July 2002, with the first band added being Amorphis on July 7, in just over a year the site had amassed a database of over 10,000 bands. The site continues to grow at a rate of about 500 bands per month, on 1 January 2013, the site announced that bands with entirely digital discographies could now be submitted to the Archives, changing the sites decade long policy of physical releases only. Digital releases must have a track listing, album art, professional or finished production. On 13 November 2014, the number of bands listed in the database reached 100,000, the site has a tradition of April Fools Day pranks that are sometimes taken seriously. A series of staged arguments between moderators appeared throughout the day on the sites forum,2010 was the year they removed The Tavern for a day. In 2012 the site posted an FBI logo on the page suggesting that the site was suspended by the FBI as a result of promoting internet piracy. Despite the ability to bypass this image just by clicking on it, many took the prank seriously. Nickelback was added to the Metal-Archives in 2013 in a prank that was similar to the 2009 Korn prank, the bands style was also changed to Penis Metal. Meshuggah were reinstated the following day, for the 2015 prank a hoax news story was posted announcing that the site was no longer free to use and the site was introducing paid membership features. A following news post revealed that the previous post was a prank, later the same day another announcement was made that the staff had changed their minds by bringing back the reviews as well as having every future review accepted automatically. This resulted in a wave of reviews that were deleted from the site the next day. This is because in the past, some submissions labeled with those genres have turned out not to be metal, additionally, there are some non-metal bands featured on the site that are considered to be part of the metal scene despite not being metal themselves
24.
Metal Storm (webzine)
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Metal Storm is a webzine specializing in various forms of heavy metal music. It is based in Tallinn, Estonia but caters to an international audience, as of June 2013, the website hosts 7,812 band profiles,7,800 reviews,553 interviews and 16,753 news items. Metal Storm users can register for free and create a profile based on their specific preferences. The comprehensive profile format allows for users to display detailed information about their taste, activity on the site. Community Points are awarded to users for contributing forum reports, band info, lyrics, news, events, reviews, and articles, with the number awarded depending on the value of the contribution. Users may also add albums to their Collection, an interactive list of albums acquired, of which statistics can be visualized in the form of pie charts broken down by style. These lists, along with the bands and ratings categories, are analyzed to compare users. Metal Storm has a forum available to all registered members, the forum is divided into many categories, including sections for discussing specific metal styles, non-metal music, general discussion and community-related topics. All comments for publications on the site are also incorporated into the forum for the purpose of convenience, the forums are moderated for spam and illegal content such as pornography and copyright infringement but are otherwise uncensored. This has caused issues with a number of posters including at least one staff member engaging in both racist and misogynistic comments, including Islamophobia. In each members Collection section, they have the option of making the part of their regular collection. Members can then browse other members tradelists and privately negotiate the trade of albums, Metal Storm states that the trading of albums is to be done at the members own risk and that the site wont be responsible for any outcomes. Metal Storm features a database of metal bands, with each band having a profile including such information as a biography, discography, lineup, genre categorization, photo, logo. All registered members are able to edit the database and submit information that is missing, before being published, community edits are moderated by members of the staff. Metal is divided into three broad sub-categories on Metal Storm, bands that fall in between two sub-categories are usually allocated based on what elements are historically more prominent in their music though there is no strict enforcement of any rules. Extreme metal This sub-category includes metal subgenres such as metal, death metal, grindcore, thrash metal. Extreme doom metal bands are included in this sub-category. Metal Storm is known for its relaxed attitude towards accepting bands that are not unquestionably categorized as metal
25.
AllMusic
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AllMusic is an online music guide service website. It was launched in 1991 by All Media Guide which later became All Media Network, AllMusic was launched in 1991 by Michael Erlewine of All Media Guide. The aim was to discographic information on every artist whos made a record since Enrico Caruso gave the industry its first big boost and its first reference book was published the following year. When first released onto the Internet, AMG predated the World Wide Web and was first available as a Gopher site, the AMG consumer web properties AllMusic. com, AllMovie. com and AllGame. com were sold by Rovi in July 2013 to All Media Network, LLC. All Media Network, LLC. was formed by the founders of SideReel. com. The following are contributors to AllMusic, as of this date, All Media Network also produced the AllMusic guide series that includes the AllMusic Guide to Rock, the All Music Guide to Jazz and the All Music Guide to the Blues. Vladimir Bogdanov is the president of the series, in August 2007, PC Magazine included AllMusic in its Top 100 Classic Websites list. All Media Network AllGame AllMovie SideReel All Music Guide to the Blues All Music Guide to Jazz Stephen Thomas Erlewine Official website
26.
MusicBrainz
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MusicBrainz is a project that aims to create an open data music database that is similar to the freedb project. MusicBrainz was founded in response to the placed on the Compact Disc Database. MusicBrainz has expanded its goals to reach beyond a compact disc metadata storehouse to become an open online database for music. MusicBrainz captures information about artists, their works, and the relationships between them. Recorded works entries capture at a minimum the album title, track titles, and these entries are maintained by volunteer editors who follow community written style guidelines. Recorded works can also store information about the date and country. As of 26 July 2016, MusicBrainz contained information about roughly 1.1 million artists,1.6 million releases, end-users can use software that communicates with MusicBrainz to add metadata tags to their digital media files, such as MP3, Ogg Vorbis or AAC. As with other contributions, the MusicBrainz community is in charge for maintaining and reviewing the data, besides collecting metadata about music, MusicBrainz also allows looking up recordings by their acoustic fingerprint. A separate application, such as MusicBrainz Picard, must be used for this, in 2000, MusicBrainz started using Relatables patented TRM for acoustic fingerprint matching. This feature attracted many users and allowed the database to grow quickly, however, by 2005 TRM was showing scalability issues as the number of tracks in the database had reached into the millions. This issue was resolved in May 2006 when MusicBrainz partnered with MusicIP, tRMs were phased out and replaced by MusicDNS in November 2008. In October 2009 MusicIP was acquired by AmpliFIND, some time after the acquisition, the MusicDNS service began having intermittent problems. Since the future of the free service was uncertain, a replacement for it was sought. The Chromaprint acoustic fingerprinting algorithm, the basis for AcoustID identification service, was started in February 2010 by a long-time MusicBrainz contributor Lukáš Lalinský, while AcoustID and Chromaprint are not officially MusicBrainz projects, they are closely tied with each other and both are open source. Chromaprint works by analyzing the first two minutes of a track, detecting the strength in each of 12 pitch classes, storing these 8 times per second, additional post-processing is then applied to compress this fingerprint while retaining patterns. The AcoustID search server then searches from the database of fingerprints by similarity, since 2003, MusicBrainzs core data are in the public domain, and additional content, including moderation data, is placed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0 license. The relational database management system is PostgreSQL, the server software is covered by the GNU General Public License. The MusicBrainz client software library, libmusicbrainz, is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License, in December 2004, the MusicBrainz project was turned over to the MetaBrainz Foundation, a non-profit group, by its creator Robert Kaye
