1.
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
2.
The Osmonds
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The Osmonds are devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and their religious values have influenced their careers. The Osmond family was not one single act, but a group of several, the Osmond Brothers began as a barbershop quartet consisting of brothers Alan, Wayne, Merrill and Jay Osmond. Their only sister Marie, who sang with her brothers at that time, launched a successful career in 1973. A revival of the original Osmond Brothers lineup in the 1980s achieved moderate success in music and continues to perform to the present day, as do Donny. Collectively, the family has sold 102 million records worldwide, the siblings older brothers George Virl Osmond, Jr. and Tom Osmond were born deaf and did not originally perform. They made several appearances in later years, most notably on the family Christmas specials in the 1970s. All of the Osmonds were born in Ogden, Utah except the youngest, Jimmy, the Osmond Brothers career began in 1958 when Alan, Wayne, Merrill and Jay began singing barbershop music for local audiences in and around Ogden. In their made-for-TV movie Inside the Osmonds, they explain that they performed to earn money to support Virl and Tom in buying hearing aids. Despite their young ages and within a few years, the talent and stage presence were strong enough that their father, George Osmond. Welk was unable to meet them, but on the same trip. Tommy Walker, Disneylands Director of Entertainment and Customer Relations from 1955 to 1966, Walker hired the Osmonds to perform on a segment of Disneyland After Dark. This episode aired on 4/15/62 and 7/01/62, while the Osmond Brothers were performing on a televised Disney special, Andy Williamss father saw them and was so impressed he told his son to book them for his television show. Andy did, and the Osmond Brothers were regulars on the show from 1962 to 1969, Donny soon joined them on the show, making the Osmond Brothers a 5-member group. Marie and Jimmy were also introduced on the show as the years went by, during this time, the Osmonds also toured Europe, performing with Swedens most popular singer, Lars Lönndahl, and even releasing a single where they sang a Swedish version of Two Dirty Little Hands. The Osmond Brothers were regulars on the Jerry Lewis Show in 1969 and they continued to tour, but soon the Osmond Brothers decided they wanted to perform popular music and shed their variety-show image. They wanted to become a rock and roll band, the change was a difficult one for their father, who was suspicious of rock and roll. But he was persuaded and the boys began performing as a pop band, to this end, the Osmonds recorded a single, Flower Music, for UNI records in 1967. They achieved only modest success at first, but they found fame in 1971, record producer Mike Curb saw the Osmonds perform as a band and recognized that they combined a rare mix of polished performing style, instrumental skill, and vocal talent
3.
Pop music
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Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid 1950s. The terms popular music and pop music are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular. Pop and rock were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they were used in opposition from each other. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other such as urban, dance, rock, Latin. Identifying factors include generally short to medium-length songs written in a format, as well as the common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, according to Pete Seeger, pop music is professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music, the music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. Pop music, as a genre, is seen as existing and developing separately, pop music continuously evolves along with the terms definition. The term pop song was first recorded as being used in 1926, Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pops earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience. Since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the meaning of non-classical mus, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles. Grove Music Online also states that, in the early 1960s pop music competed terminologically with beat music, while in the USA its coverage overlapped with that of rock and roll. From about 1967, the term was used in opposition to the term rock music. Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral. It is not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward, and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative. It is, provided from on high rather than being made from below, pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment, the lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions
4.
Bubblegum pop
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Bubblegums classic period ran from 1967 to 1972. A second wave of bubblegum started two years later and ran until 1977 when disco took over and punk rock emerged, the genre was predominantly a singles phenomenon rather than an album-oriented one. Because many acts were manufactured in the studio using session musicians, singer Tommy Roe, arguably, had the most bubblegum hits of any artist during this period, notably 1969s Dizzy. The songs typically have singalong choruses, seemingly childlike themes and a contrived innocence, bubblegum songs are also defined as having a catchy melody, simple chords, simple harmonies, dancy beats, repetitive riffs or hooks and a vocally-multiplied refrain. The song lyrics often feature themes of love and personal happiness, with references to sunshine, platonic love, toys, colors, nonsense words. They are also notable for their frequent reference to food, including sugar, honey, butterscotch, jelly. Cross-marketing with cereal and bubblegum manufacturers also strengthened the link between bubblegum songs and confectionery, cardboard records by The Archies, The Banana Splits, The Jackson 5, The Monkees, Bobby Sherman, Josie and the Pussycats, H. R. Producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz have claimed credit for coining the term pop, saying that when they discussed their target audience, they decided it was teenagers. And at the time we used to be chewing bubblegum, and my partner and I used to look at it and laugh and say, Ah, the term was seized upon by Buddah Records label executive Neil Bogart. Music writer and bubblegum historian Bill Pitzonka confirmed the claim, telling Goldmine magazine, Kasenetz and Katz really crystallized it when they came up with the term themselves and that nice little analogy. And Neil Bogart, being the person he was, just crammed it down the throats of people. Thats really the point at which bubblegum took off, a breeding ground for the genre has also been found in the field of 1960s garage rock, the songs of which shared an overriding simplicity with bubblegum. Garage and bubblegum groups were also both generally singles acts, between those two camps emerged Florida group The Royal Guardsmen, who scored a US No.2 hit in 1966 with their novelty hit Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron, and The Fifth Estate, whose 1967 song Ding-Dong, the Witch Is Dead reached No.11 in the US. Although the band began as a prefabricated, fictional rock group concocted to sell records and TV advertising time, in May 1968, The Ohio Express also scored a No.4 hit with Yummy Yummy Yummy. The song was released as an Ohio Express single without Levines knowledge, two follow-ups, Down at Lulus and Chewy Chewy, also charted – both featuring vocals by Levine, and neither featuring any members of Ohio Express. The real Ohio Express toured, supporting The Who and Hermans Hermits, with bassist Dean Kastran performing the vocals for the hits, Kasenetz and Katz also scored on Bell Records in early 1969 with Gimme Gimme Good Lovin by another manufactured band, Crazy Elephant. The dominance of the Kasenetz–Katz team was challenged in 1969 by music publisher Don Kirshner and Hanky Pankys co-author, a battered and resentful Kirshner envisioned a manufactured group over which he could have permanent and total control, Filmations cartoon band The Archies, based on the Archie Comics characters
5.
Rhythm and blues
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Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated as R&B or RnB, is a genre of popular African-American music that originated in the 1940s. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy. Lyrics focus heavily on the themes of triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, freedom, economics, aspirations, the term rhythm and blues has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s it was applied to blues records. This tangent of RnB is now known as British rhythm and blues, by the 1970s, the term rhythm and blues changed again and was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the 1980s, a style of R&B developed, becoming known as Contemporary R&B. It combines elements of rhythm and blues, soul, funk, pop, hip hop, popular R&B vocalists at the end of the 20th century included Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, and Mariah Carey. Although Jerry Wexler of Billboard magazine is credited with coining the term rhythm and blues as a term in the United States in 1948. It replaced the term race music, which came from within the black community. The term rhythm and blues was used by Billboard in its chart listings from June 1949 until August 1969, before the Rhythm and Blues name was instated, various record companies had already begun replacing the term race music with sepia series. In 2010 LaMont Robinson founded the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame Museum, writer and producer Robert Palmer defined rhythm & blues as a catchall term referring to any music that was made by and for black Americans. He has used the term R&B as a synonym for jump blues, however, AllMusic separates it from jump blues because of its stronger, gospel-esque backbeat. Lawrence Cohn, author of Nothing but the Blues, writes that rhythm, according to him, the term embraced all black music except classical music and religious music, unless a gospel song sold enough to break into the charts. Well into the 21st century, the term R&B continues in use to music made by black musicians. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, arrangements were rehearsed to the point of effortlessness and were sometimes accompanied by background vocalists. Simple repetitive parts mesh, creating momentum and rhythmic interplay producing mellow, lilting, while singers are emotionally engaged with the lyrics, often intensely so, they remain cool, relaxed, and in control. The bands dressed in suits, and even uniforms, an associated with the modern popular music that rhythm. Lyrics often seemed fatalistic, and the music typically followed predictable patterns of chords, there was also increasing emphasis on the electric guitar as a lead instrument, as well as the piano and saxophone
6.
Rock music
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It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by blues, rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of genres such as electric blues and folk. Musically, rock has centered on the guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature using a verse-chorus form, like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of subgenres, including new wave, post-punk. From the 1990s alternative rock began to rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures and this trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, Hammond organ and synthesizers. The basic rock instrumentation was adapted from the blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed a rock band or rock group, Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies are often derived from older musical modes, including the Dorian and Mixolydian, harmonies range from the common triad to parallel fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock, because of its complex history and tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources, including the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music and rhythm, as a result, it has been seen as articulating the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality, according to Simon Frith rock was something more than pop, something more than rock and roll. Rock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with the concept of art as artistic expression, original. The foundations of music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, debate surrounds which record should be considered the first rock and roll record. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
7.
MGM Records
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MGM Records was a record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946 for the purpose of releasing soundtrack albums of their musical films. It soon transitioned to a pop music label which continued into the 1970s, in one instance, it even released the highly successful soundtrack album of a film made by a rival studio, Columbia Picturess Born Free. Their first soundtrack was of Till the Clouds Roll By, a 1946 film based on the life of composer Jerome Kern and it was the first soundtrack album of a live-action film. The album was issued as a set of four 10-inch 78-rpm records. As in many early MGM soundtrack albums, only eight selections from the film were included on the version of the album. In order to fit the songs onto the sides the musical material needed editing. Needless to say, it was several generations removed from the original, also, the playback recordings were purposely recorded very dry otherwise it would come across as too hollow sounding in large movie theatres. This made these albums sound flat and boxy, MGM Records called these original cast albums in the style of Deccas Broadway show cast albums. They also coined the phrase recorded directly from the soundtrack, over the years the term soundtrack began to be commonly applied to any recording from a film, whether taken from the actual film soundtrack or re-recorded in studio. The phrase is sometimes incorrectly used for Broadway cast recordings. While it is correct to call a soundtrack a cast recording it is never correct to call a cast recording a soundtrack, by 1950, magnetic tape had been perfected for recording use, and this markedly improved the sound quality on the albums, beginning about 1951. MGM Records also released a soundtrack album of Quo Vadis. Beginning in the 1990s, authentic soundtrack albums of the scores to Ben-Hur. The Rhino Records editions of these albums featured literally the entire scores, Rhino also released a full-length two-disc album of the score of Gone With the Wind, recorded from the soundtrack in the original mono. Rhinos license expired at the end of 2011 and the albums Rhino issued are now out of print, Warner Bros. now owns the MGM soundtracks first issued by MGM Records and Warner Bros WaterTower Music unit now has the rights to release the MGM soundtracks. Kildare, Andy Hardy, Maisie, and Crime Does Not Pay, the MGM record pressing plant also manufactured the electrical transcriptions used to distribute the shows to local stations. The record manufacturing division was closed when MGM Records was sold to PolyGram and these Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer records were manufactured under contract with the studio by Columbia Records. In the early 1950s, MGM Records was considered one of the record companies due to owning its own manufacturing facilities
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
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