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.
Cold Chisel
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Cold Chisel are an Australian rock band that formed in Adelaide, Australia. They had chart success in the 70s, 80s and 90s, Cold Chisel are regarded as having a distinctly Australian popularity and musicianship, exemplifying pub rock and highlighting the working class life in Australia. The group changed its name several times before settling on Cold Chisel in 1974 after writing a song with that title, Barnes relationship with other band members was volatile, as a Scot he often came to blows with Liverpool-born Prestwich and he left the band several times. During these periods Moss would handle vocals until Barnes returned, Walker soon emerged as Cold Chisels primary songwriter. Walker spent 1974 in Armidale, completing his studies and in 1975 Kaczmarek left the band and was replaced by Phil Small, Barnes older brother John Swan was a member of Cold Chisel around this time, providing backing vocals and percussion but after several violent incidents he was fired. In May 1976, Cold Chisel relocated to Melbourne but found little success, six months later, in May 1977, Barnes announced he would quit Cold Chisel in order to join Swan in Feather, a hard-rocking blues band that had evolved from an earlier group called Blackfeather. A farewell performance in Sydney went so well that the singer changed his mind, the following month the Warner Music Group picked up Cold Chisel. In the early months of 1978, Cold Chisel recorded its debut album with producer Peter Walker. All tracks were written by Don Walker except Juliet, for which Barnes wrote the melody, khe Sanh has since become Cold Chisels signature tune and arguably its most popular among fans. The song was remixed, with re-recorded vocals, for inclusion on the international version of 1980s East. The bands next release was a live EP titled Youre Thirteen, Youre Beautiful and this had been recorded at a show at Sydneys Regent Theatre in 1977 that had featured Midnight Oil as one of the support acts. One of the EPs tracks, Merry Go Round was later recorded on the follow-up and this album was recorded between July 1978 and January 1979 with experienced producer Richard Batchens, who had previously worked with Richard Clapton, Sherbet and Blackfeather. Batchens smoothed out many of the rough edges and attempted to give their songs a sophisticated sound. This approach has made the album sit a little uncomfortably with the band ever since, once again, the majority of the songs were penned by Walker, with Barnes collaborating with Walker on the first single Goodbye and Moss contributing to Dresden. Goodbye became a favourite for the band, and even went on to be performed by U2 during Australian tours in the 1980s. By now the band stood at the verge of national success, even without significant radio airplay or support from Countdown. In spite of the subject matter, the track became a hit. Recorded over two months in early-1980, East reached #2 on the Australian album charts and was the second-highest selling album by an Australian artist for the year, Cold Chisel is the only Australian rock band to score hits with songs written by every member of the group
3.
Circus Animals
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Circus Animals is the fourth studio album by Australian band Cold Chisel, released in 1982. It was recorded and mixed at Paradise Studios and EMI Studio 301 and it reached number one on the Australian charts, remaining in the charts for 40 weeks, and also topped the New Zealand charts. The working title for the album was Tunnel Cunts, many of the albums songs were written as a direct reaction to the pop success of the bands previous LP East and feature unusual, experimental arrangements. Singer Barnes said, the band, particularly Don, decided to revolt against the pop formula when we made Circus Animals. Walker said, There was no way of improving what wed done on East, Barnes had noted, Its not way out, not ridiculously experimental. Its all been done before, just not by us, in the lead up to the recording, the band was playing concerts in pubs and clubs in regional centres such as Wollongong and Newcastle. Band members were encouraged to improvise and change song structures, Barnes said, It was a really loose free-form thing. We were developing and changing the songs every night to suit the atmosphere we were in. Producer Opitz said of the reaction to East, Don came to me six months later and said, “I never want to have another commercial album again. ”Which I thought was really funny. Don said he want to do another commercial album. The first single You Got Nothing I Want was written by singer Jimmy Barnes about the lack of interest shown in them by their American label rep during the bands 1981 US tour. Bow River was a song by guitarist Ian Moss, written about a sheep station in the Northern Territory where his brother Peter had once worked. The song was included as the B-side to one of the albums singles, when the War Is Over was written by drummer Steve Prestwich and has been covered numerous times by Little River Band, John Farnham, Uriah Heep, Cosima De Vito and Something for Kate. Letter to Alan was dedicated to a member of the bands road crew, Alan Dallow. Mark Opitz later said, We were doing a mountain of coke during the Circus Animals sessions and we would do monster lines of coke and then the band members would go in to do their parts. I remember one time my head turned into a helicopter and I was about to lift off, the album cover was shot by Peter Levy. Barnes said, This caravan we towed out to Lake Eyre for the photo shoot and it was about 40 degrees, it was brutal. Don Walker said of the location, I wanted something that was Australian, a wide flat space with a caravan on it
4.
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
5.
7" vinyl
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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
6.
Pub rock (Australia)
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Pub rock is a style of Australian rock and roll popular throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and still influencing contemporary Australian music today. The term came from the venues where most of these bands originally played — inner-city and these often noisy, hot, small and crowded venues were not always ideal as music venues and favoured loud, simple songs based on drums and electric guitar riffs. The Australian version of pub rock incorporates hard rock, blues rock, the emergence of the Australian version of the pub rock genre and the related pub circuit was the result of several interconnected factors. These concerts and dances were all-ages events—often with adult supervision—and alcohol was not served, during the 1960s, however, Australian states began liberalising their licensing laws. Pub owners soon realised that providing live music would draw people to pubs in large numbers. In the early 1970s Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs, Blackfeather, in March 1970 Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs consisted of Thorpe on lead vocals and guitar, Jimmy Thompson on drums, Paul Wheeler on bass guitar and Lobby Loyde on lead guitar. They released a version of Willie Dixons Good Mornin Little School Girl. They had developed a sound and in July that year, Warren Pig Morgan had joined and the band recorded, The Hoax Is Over. Thorpe described their sound like we were standing on a pair of Boeing 747 engines and it cracked the foundations and broke windows in neighbouring buildings. By early 1971 Blackfeather consisted of Neale Johns on lead vocals, John Robinson on lead guitar, Robert Fortesque on bass guitar and their debut album, At the Mountains of Madness, appeared in April 1971. In May they had a hit with Seasons of Change, which peaked at No.15 on the Go-Set National Top 40 Singles Chart. Buffalo formed in August 1971 by Dave Tice on co-lead vocals with Paul Balbi on drums, John Baxter on guitar, appeared in June the following year. According to Australian rock music journalist, Ed Nimmervoll, The seeds for Australian heavy rock can be traced back to two important sources, Billy Thorpes Seventies Aztecs and Sydney band Buffalo. He found that Cold Chisel fused a combination of rockabilly, hard rock and he noted The Angels had a profound effect on the Australian live music scene of the late 1970s/early 1980s. Helped redefine the Australian pub rock tradition, brand of no-frills, hard-driving boogie rock attracted pub goers in unprecedented numbers. The Dingoes provided a combination of R&B, country and red-hot rocknroll was imbued with a delightful sense of time. It could be argued that the venues many of the bands played in, had a major influence on the evolution of their music. The venues were more often than not small and the crowds — alcohol-fuelled — were there for the rather than to see a name band
7.
Warner Music Group
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Warner Music Group is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. With a multibillion-dollar annual turnover, WMG employs in excess of 3,500 people and has operations in more than 50 countries throughout the world, the company owns and operates some of the largest and most successful record labels in the world, including its flagship labels Warner Bros. WMG also owns Warner/Chappell Music, one of the worlds largest music publishers, the film company had no record label division at the time and one of its contracted actors, Tab Hunter, scored a hit song for Dot Records, which was a division of rival Paramount Pictures. In order to prevent any repetition of its actors recording for rival companies, in 1963, Warner purchased Reprise Records, which had been founded by Frank Sinatra three years earlier so that he could have more creative control over his recordings. With the Reprise acquisition, Warner gained the services of Mo Ostin, the Canadian unit was opened in 1967 as Warner Reprise Canada Ltd, now called Warner Music Canada Co. After Warner Bros. was sold to Seven Arts Productions in 1967, it purchased Atlantic Records, founded in 1947 and WMGs oldest label and this acquisition brought Neil Young into the company fold, initially as a member of Buffalo Springfield. The Geffen catalogue, now owned by Universal Music Group, represents Youngs only major recordings not under WMG ownership, in 1969, two years after being purchased by Seven Arts, the Warner Bros. -Seven Arts company was sold to the Kinney National Company. Kinney combined the operations of all of its labels. An earlier attempt by Warner Bros. Records to create a distribution arm in 1958 didnt materialize. So in 1969, Elektra Records boss Jac Holzman approached Atlantics Jerry Wexler with the idea of setting up a joint distribution network for Warner, Elektra, an experimental branch was established in Southern California as a possible prototype for an expanded operation. Atlantic, its subsidiary Atco Records, and its affiliate Stax Records paved the way for Warners rise to industry prominence, the purchase brought in Atlantics lucrative back-catalogue, which included classic recordings by Ray Charles, the Drifters, the Coasters, and many more. But the sale led to Stax leaving the Atlantic fold because the new Warner owners insisted on keeping the rights to Stax recordings and it was soon apparent in 1969 that Atlantic/Atco president Ahmet Ertegün viewed Warner/Reprise president Mike Maitland as godlike. Maitland believed that, as vice-president in charge of the Warner Bros, in retrospect Ertegün clearly feared that Maitland would ultimately have more power than him and so he moved rapidly to secure his own position and remove Maitland. Following the takeover, Warners music group briefly adopted the umbrella name Kinney Music, erteguns campaign against Maitland began in earnest that summer. Atlantic had agreed to help Warner Bros. in its efforts to establish its labels overseas, Mike Maitland complained bitterly to Kinney executive Ted Ashley, but to no avail – by this time Ertegun was poised to make his move against Maitland. As he had with Hyman, Ertegun urged Steve Ross to extend Mo Ostin and Joe Smiths contracts, in response, Ertegun broadly hinted that Maitlands days were numbered and that he, Ertegun, was about to take over the recording division. Unlike the Warner/Reprise executives, Atlantics execs the Ertegun brothers and Wexler owned stock in Kinney, on Sunday January 25, Ted Ashley went to Maitlands house to tell him he had been dismissed, and Maitland declined the offer of a job at the movie studio. One week later, Mo Ostin was named as the new President of Warner Bros, Records, with Joe Smith as his Executive Vice-President
8.
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
