1.
Ricky Martin
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Enrique Martín Morales, commonly known as Ricky Martin, is a Puerto Rican singer, actor and author. Martin began his career at age twelve with the pop group Menudo. After five years with the group, he released several Spanish-language solo albums throughout the 1990s and he also acted on stage and on TV in Mexico, becoming a modest star in the country. In 1994 he starred on the American TV soap opera General Hospital, since its release, the song has sold over 8 million copies, making it one of the best selling singles of all time. His first English-language album, has sold 22 million copies and is one of the best selling albums of all time. His other studio albums include, Me Amarás, A Medio Vivir, Vuelve, Sound Loaded, Almas del Silencio, Life, Música + Alma + Sexo, and A Quien Quiera Escuchar. Martin was born on December 24,1971, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the son of Nereida Morales, an accountant, and Enrique Martín Negroni and he was the second youngest sibling. Martin has two older maternal half-brothers, Fernando and Ángel Fernández, and two older paternal half-brothers, Eric and Daniel Martín, and a younger paternal half-sister Vanessa Martín. Martin in an interview with Vanity Fair described his origins as Spanish, with Basque and Jewish ancestry from his great-grandparents, Martin grew up in a Roman Catholic home and was an altar boy throughout his childhood. His mothers side of the family was musically inclined and his grandfather was a poet. In a year and a half, he starred in eleven commercials, after achieving a small amount of fame in Puerto Rico for his work in television commercials, Martin auditioned for membership in Puerto Rican boy band Menudo. Although the executives enjoyed his dancing and singing at his first two auditions, Martin was rejected because he was too short, by the third audition, his persistence impressed executives and in 1984, twelve-year-old Martin became a member. The song Asignatura Pendiente from Almas del Silencio was inspired by the first time Martin left Puerto Rico to tour with Menudo. He considered leaving the group while on tour in Brazil, but ultimately decided to out of fear of media backlash. Martin also began struggling with his sexuality, noting the stark contrast between his status as a sex symbol and his own emotions, despite this, Martin acknowledged his opportunity to have so many amazing experiences with so many amazing people during his time with the group. He developed an interest in philanthropy when the group became UNICEF ambassadors and his experiences as an ambassador affected him greatly and inspired him to continue working with charities later in life. By 1987, Menudos record sales began to decline and the changed its image, adopting an edgier look. The band released the album Somos Los Hijos del Rock in Spanish, and to appeal to the Menudos Filipino fanbase, after recording eleven albums with the group, Martin left Menudo in July 1989 at age seventeen, hoping to rest and evaluate his career path
2.
Columbia Records
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Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. the United States division of Sony Corporation. It was founded in 1887, evolving from an enterprise named the American Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the sound business. Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of singers, instrumentalists. It is one of Sony Musics three flagship record labels alongside RCA Records and Epic Records, rather, as above, it was connected to CBS, a broadcasting media company which had purchased the company in 1938, and had been co-founded in 1927 by Columbia Records itself. Though Arista Records was sold to Bertelsmann Music Group, it would become a sister label of Columbia Records through its mutual connection to Sony Music. The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded in 1887 by stenographer, lawyer and New Jersey native Edward Easton and it derived its name from the District of Columbia, where it was headquartered. At first it had a monopoly on sales and service of Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington. As was the custom of some of the regional companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own. Columbias ties to Edison and the North American Phonograph Company were severed in 1894 with the North American Phonograph Companys breakup, thereafter it sold only records and phonographs of its own manufacture. In 1902, Columbia introduced the XP record, a brown wax record. According to Gracyk, the molded brown waxes may have sold to Sears for distribution. Columbia began selling records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their Toy Graphophone of 1899. For a decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and the Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American recorded sound. In order to add prestige to its catalog of artists. The firm also introduced the internal-horn Grafonola to compete with the extremely popular Victrola sold by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company, during this era, Columbia used the famous Magic Notes logo—a pair of sixteenth notes in a circle—both in the United States and overseas. Columbia was split into two companies, one to make records and one to make players, Columbia Phonograph was moved to Connecticut, and Ed Easton went with it. Eventually it was renamed the Dictaphone Corporation, in late 1923, Columbia went into receivership
3.
YouTube
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YouTube is an American video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. The service was created by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—in February 2005, Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion, YouTube now operates as one of Googles subsidiaries. Unregistered users can watch videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos deemed potentially offensive are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old, YouTube earns advertising revenue from Google AdSense, a program which targets ads according to site content and audience. YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Karim could not easily find video clips of either event online, Hurley and Chen said that the original idea for YouTube was a video version of an online dating service, and had been influenced by the website Hot or Not. YouTube began as a venture capital-funded technology startup, primarily from an $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital between November 2005 and April 2006, YouTubes early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California. The domain name www. youtube. com was activated on February 14,2005, the first YouTube video, titled Me at the zoo, shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video was uploaded on April 23,2005, and can still be viewed on the site, YouTube offered the public a beta test of the site in May 2005. The first video to reach one million views was a Nike advertisement featuring Ronaldinho in November 2005. Following a $3.5 million investment from Sequoia Capital in November, the site grew rapidly, and in July 2006 the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day. The site has 800 million unique users a month and it is estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000. The choice of the name www. youtube. com led to problems for a similarly named website, the sites owner, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment, filed a lawsuit against YouTube in November 2006 after being regularly overloaded by people looking for YouTube. Universal Tube has since changed the name of its website to www. utubeonline. com, in October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, and the deal was finalized on November 13,2006. In March 2010, YouTube began free streaming of certain content, according to YouTube, this was the first worldwide free online broadcast of a major sporting event. On March 31,2010, the YouTube website launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface, Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman commented, We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter. In May 2010, YouTube videos were watched more than two times per day. This increased to three billion in May 2011, and four billion in January 2012, in February 2017, one billion hours of YouTube was watched every day
4.
Puerto Rico
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Puerto Rico, officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and briefly called Porto Rico, is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the northeast Caribbean Sea. It is an archipelago that includes the island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller ones such as Mona, Culebra. The capital and most populous city is San Juan and its official languages are Spanish and English, though Spanish predominates. The islands population is approximately 3.4 million, Puerto Ricos rich history, tropical climate, diverse natural scenery, renowned traditional cuisine, and attractive tax incentives make it a popular destination for travelers from around the world. Four centuries of Spanish colonial government transformed the ethnic, cultural and physical landscapes primarily with waves of African captives, and Canarian. In the Spanish imperial imagination, Puerto Rico played a secondary, in 1898, following the Spanish–American War, the United States appropriated Puerto Rico together with most former Spanish colonies under the terms of the Treaty of Paris. Puerto Ricans are natural-born citizens of the United States, however, Puerto Rico does not have a vote in the United States Congress, which governs the territory with full jurisdiction under the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950. As a U. S. territory, American citizens residing on the island are disenfranchised at the level and may not vote for president. However, Congress approved a constitution, allowing U. S. citizens on the territory to elect a governor. A fifth referendum will be held in June 2017, with only Statehood, in early 2017, the Puerto Rican government-debt crisis posed serious problems for the government. The outstanding bond debt that had climbed to $70 billion or $12,000 per capita at a time with 12. 4% unemployment, the debt had been increasing during a decade long recession. Puerto Ricans often call the island Borinquen – a derivation of Borikén, its indigenous Taíno name, the terms boricua and borincano derive from Borikén and Borinquen respectively, and are commonly used to identify someone of Puerto Rican heritage. The island is also known in Spanish as la isla del encanto. Columbus named the island San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist, eventually traders and other maritime visitors came to refer to the entire island as Puerto Rico, while San Juan became the name used for the main trading/shipping port and the capital city. The islands name was changed to Porto Rico by the United States after the Treaty of Paris of 1898, the anglicized name was used by the US government and private enterprises. The name was changed back to Puerto Rico by a joint resolution in Congress introduced by Félix Córdova Dávila in 1931, the ancient history of the archipelago known today as Puerto Rico is not well known. The scarce archaeological findings and early Spanish scholarly accounts from the colonial era constitute the basis of knowledge about them. The first comprehensive book on the history of Puerto Rico was written by Fray Íñigo Abbad y Lasierra in 1786, the first settlers were the Ortoiroid people, an Archaic Period culture of Amerindian hunters and fishermen who migrated from the South American mainland
5.
La Boca
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La Boca is a neighborhood, or barrio of the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires. It retains a strong European flavour, with many of its early settlers being from the Italian city of Genoa, in fact the name has a strong assonance with the Genoese neighborhood of Boccadasse, and some people believe that the Buenos Aires barrio was indeed named after it. The conventional explanation is that the neighborhood sits at the mouth of the Matanza-Riachuelo River, as one of Buenos Airess 48 barrios, La Boca is located in the citys south-east near its old port. The barrio of Barracas is to the west, San Telmo, in 1882, after a lengthy general strike, La Boca seceded from Argentina, and the rebels raised the Genoese flag, which was immediately torn down personally by then President Julio Argentino Roca. Among sports fans, Boca is best known for being the home of world-renowned football club Boca Juniors, the club plays their home matches in the Estadio Alberto J. Armando, popularly known as La Bombonera. La Boca is a destination for tourists visiting Argentina, with its colourful houses and pedestrian street, the Caminito. Other attractions include the La Ribera theatre, many tango clubs, the actual area visited by tourists is only a few blocks long and has been built up for tourism very actively over the last few years. Outside this tourist area, it is a poor neighborhood that has had many regular occurrences of petty crimes reported. It has also been a centre for politics, having elected the first socialist member of the Argentine Congress and was home to many demonstrations during the crisis of 2001. As of 2016, the health of over 1,000 La Boca citizens is threatened by the pollution of the Matanza-Riachuelo River, a Flags of the World article about flags used in La Boca Caminito Street at La Boca neighbourhood A Brief Look into the History of La Boca
6.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
7.
Telenovela
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A telenovela, Brazilian Portuguese, ) is a type of limited-run serial drama originally produced in Latin America that has become popular in European, Asian, and other global television networks. The word combines tele, short for televisión or televisão, and novela, There are similar genres to the telenovela that use the novela format, but go by varying names including teleserye, téléroman, or simply dramas. Telenovelas differ from soap operas in that they continue for more than a year. This makes them shorter than operas, but still much longer than most other serials. In Spain, they are also called culebrones because of the convoluted plots, episodes of telenovelas usually last between 30 and 45 minutes, and rarely more than an hour, except for final episodes. The telenovela combines drama with the 19th-century feuilleton, and naturally evolved from the Latin American radionovela, by the 1970s and 1980s Mexico became a world pioneer in using telenovelas to shape behavior, particularly successfully in introducing the idea of family planning. Mexico and Brazil later, in the 1990s, played a key role in the export of telenovelas. Over time telenovelas evolved in the structure of their plots and in the themes that they address, couples who kiss each other in the first minutes of the first episode sometimes stay together for many episodes before the scriptwriter splits them up. Moreover, previously taboo themes such as violence, racism. Since the 2000s, Latin America and Asia altogether have emerged as the biggest producers of telenovelas, the end result is that the telenovela requires a faster-paced, more concise style of melodrama compared to the soap opera. Telenovelas, which are sometimes called tassels or comedias, are produced primarily in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries and are usually shown during prime time. The first telenovelas were produced in Brazil, Cuba and Mexico, Sua vida me pertence was shown twice a week, between 1957 and 1958 Mexico produced its first drama serial in the modern telenovela format of Monday to Friday slots, Senda prohibida, written by Fernanda Villeli. The first global telenovela was Los ricos también lloran, which was exported to Russia, China, countries that produce well-known telenovelas are Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile and Venezuela. Telenovelas tend to fall within these six categories, Working-class melodrama and they typically feature a poor woman who falls in love with a rich man whose family spurns her, such as the Las Tres Marias. This genre started with Quinceañera in 1987, mystery/thriller is a category of telenovela that is more cold-hearted than the other subgenres. It may portray a mysterious death or disappearance, which may tear couples, even families apart, such as Cuna de Lobos, La Casa al Final de la Calle, La Mujer de Judas, El Rostro de la Venganza or La Casa de al Lado. Romantic comedy, which portrays love stories with some or lots of such as Las tontas no van al cielo Fools Dont Go to Heaven or Yo soy Betty. Pop band story portrays the lives of aspiring popsters such as in Alcanzar una estrella and its sequel Alcanzar una estrella II, as well as Rebelde, some, though not all, of these type of telenovelas are geared towards a teenage and/or pre-teen audience
8.
Record producer
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A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performers music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has many roles during the recording process, the roles of a producer vary. The producer may perform these roles himself, or help select the engineer, the producer may also pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record companies budget. A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording. Producers also often take on an entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, contracts. In the 2010s, the industry has two kinds of producers with different roles, executive producer and music producer. Executive producers oversee project finances while music producers oversee the process of recording songs or albums. In most cases the producer is also a competent arranger, composer. The producer will also liaise with the engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation actually is music director. The music producers job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music, at the beginning of record industry, producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1950s and 1960s due to technological developments, the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously, all of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio and the performance had to be recorded. As well, for a song that used 20 instruments, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. Examples include the rock sound effects of the 1960s, e. g. playing back the sound of recorded instruments backwards or clanging the tape to produce unique sound effects. These new instruments were electric or electronic, and thus they used instrument amplifiers, new technologies like multitracking changed the goal of recording, A producer could blend together multiple takes and edit together different sections to create the desired sound. For example, in jazz fusion Bandleader-composer Miles Davis album Bitches Brew, producers like Phil Spector and George Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio, other examples of such engineers includes Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Brian Wilson, and Biddu
9.
Buenos Aires
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Buenos Aires is the capital and most populous city of Argentina. The city is located on the shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata. The city of Buenos Aires is neither part of Buenos Aires Province nor the Provinces capital, rather, in 1880, after decades of political infighting, Buenos Aires was federalized and removed from Buenos Aires Province. The city limits were enlarged to include the towns of Belgrano and Flores, the 1994 constitutional amendment granted the city autonomy, hence its formal name, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Its citizens first elected a chief of government in 1996, previously, Buenos Aires is considered an alpha city by the study GaWC5. Buenos Aires quality of life was ranked 81st in the world and one of the best in Latin America in 2012 and it is the most visited city in South America, and the second-most visited city of Latin America. Buenos Aires is a top tourist destination, and is known for its preserved Spanish/European-style architecture, Buenos Aires held the 1st Pan American Games in 1951 as well as hosting two venues in the 1978 FIFA World Cup. Buenos Aires will host the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics and the 2018 G20 summit, Buenos Aires is a multicultural city, being home to multiple ethnic and religious groups. Several languages are spoken in the city in addition to Spanish, contributing to its culture, the hill was known to them as Buen Ayre, as it was free of the foul smell prevalent in the old city, which is adjacent to swampland. During the siege of Cagliari, the Aragonese built a sanctuary to the Virgin Mary on top of the hill, in 1335, King Alfonso the Gentle donated the church to the Mercedarians, who built an abbey that stands to this day. In the years after that, a story circulated, claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary was retrieved from the sea after it miraculously helped to calm a storm in the Mediterranean Sea, the statue was placed in the abbey. Spanish sailors, especially Andalusians, venerated this image and frequently invoked the Fair Winds to aid them in their navigation, a sanctuary to the Virgin of Buen Ayre would be later erected in Seville. Pedro de Mendoza called the city Holy Mary of the Fair Winds, mendoza’s settlement soon came under attack by indigenous people, and was abandoned in 1541. For many years, the name was attributed to a Sancho del Campo, a second settlement was established in 1580 by Juan de Garay, who sailed down the Paraná River from Asunción. Garay preserved the name chosen by Mendoza, calling the city Ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad y Puerto de Santa María del Buen Aire. The short form Buenos Aires became the common usage during the 17th century, the usual abbreviation for Buenos Aires in Spanish is Bs. As. It is common as well to refer to it as B. A. or BA /ˌbiːˈeɪ/ bee-AY), while BA is used more by expats residing in the city, the locals more often use the abbreviation Baires, in one word. Seaman Juan Díaz de Solís, navigating in the name of Spain, was the first European to reach the Río de la Plata in 1516 and his expedition was cut short when he was killed during an attack by the native Charrúa tribe in what is now Uruguay
10.
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
11.
A Medio Vivir (album)
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A Medio Vivir is the third studio album by the Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin. It was released on September 19,1995, the album has sold over three million copies, worldwide. That number includes 1.3 million copies sold in Europe, a Medio Vivir was released at first in Latin America in 1995. It peaked at eleven on the Top Latin Albums in the US. The album was certified 6× Platinum in Argentina, in 1996, María debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, and peaked at number eighty-eight. The album has sold 287,000 copies in the US and was certified Gold by the RIAA for shipping 500,000 copies, the same year, María charted in Spain and Finland, and A Medio Vivir followed peaking inside top ten in both countries. It was certified 4× Platinum in Spain and Gold in Finland, however, the real international breakthrough came in 1997, when María became a hit all over Europe. A Medio Vivir debuted on the charts in countries, peaking inside top ten in France. It was certified Platinum by the IFPI, after selling one million copies in Europe and it was certified Platinum in France and Gold in Belgium and Switzerland. After the success of María, Te Extraño, Te Olvido and it peaked inside top ten in France and Belgium Wallonia. Volverás was released as the single and peaked at number forty-eight in France. Corazón was released in Finland reaching number twenty,1995 in Latin music List of best-selling albums in Argentina
12.
12-inch single
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The 12-inch single is a type of gramophone record that has wider groove spacing and shorter playing time compared to typical LPs. This allows for levels to be cut on the disc by the cutting engineer, which in turn gives a wider dynamic range. This record type is used in disco and dance music genres. They are played at either 33 1⁄3 or 45 rpm, 12-inch singles typically have much shorter playing time than full-length LPs, thus require fewer grooves per inch. This extra space permits a broader dynamic range or louder recording level as the grooves excursions can be greater in amplitude. Many record companies began producing 12-inch singles at 33 1⁄3 rpm, although 45 rpm gives better treble response and was used on many 12-inch singles, the gramophone records cut especially for dance-floor DJs came into existence with the advent of recorded Jamaican mento music in the 1950s. With the 1967 Jamaican invention of remix, called dub on the island, those specials became valuable items sold to allied sound system DJs, who could draw crowds with their exclusive hits. The popularity of sound engineer King Tubby, who singlehandedly invented and perfected dub remixes from as early as 1967. By then 10-inch records were used to cut those dubs, by 1971, most reggae singles issued in Jamaica included on their B-side a dub remix of the A-side, many of them first tested as exclusive dub plates on dances. Those dubs basically included drum and bass-oriented remixes used by sound system selecters, the 10-inch acetate specials would remain popular until at least the 2000s in Jamaica. Most likely, the use of exclusive dub acetates in Jamaica also led American DJs to do the same. In the United States, the 12-inch single gramophone record came into popularity with the advent of music in the 1970s after earlier market experiments. In early 1970, Cycle/Ampex Records test-marketed a 12-inch single by Buddy Fite, the experiment aimed to energize the struggling singles market, offering a new option for consumers who had stopped buying traditional singles. The record was pressed at 33 rpm, with run times to the 7-inch 45-rpm pressing of the single. Several hundred copies were available for sale for 98 cents each at two Tower Records stores. Another early 12-inch single was released in 1973 by soul/R&B musician/songwriter/producer Jerry Williams, 12-inch promotional copies of Straight From My Heart were released on his own Swamp Dogg Presents label, with distribution by Jamie/Guyden Distribution Corporation. It was manufactured by Jamie Record Co. of Philadelphia, PA, the B-side of the record is blank. The first 12-inch single made specifically for DJs was actually a 10-inch acetate used by a mix engineer in need of a Friday-night test copy for famed disco mixer Tom Moulton, the song was Ill be holding on by Al Downing
