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.
Namie Amuro
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Namie Amuro —formerly known as Namie Maruyama in her personal life— is a Japanese singer, dancer, fashion model, actress and businesswoman. Born in Naha, Okinawa, Amuro debuted in music as an idol with the band Super Monkeys at age 14, although majority of their releases were unsuccessful in Japan, Amuros venturing in modelling fashion and acting helped the group gain attention on their single TRY ME 〜私を信じて〜. Retitling themselves as Namie Amuro with Super Monkey’s to achieve success, they released a studio album. She signed with avex trax in 1995 to released her debut single “Body Feels EXIT and she achieved large success with her single CAN YOU CELEBRATE. Which is still the single from a female artist in Japan. Transitioning into westernised R&B music, she released her third album GENIUS2000, as she was beginning to mold her well-known signature R&B sound, sales started to decline by the release of her fifth album STYLE. But in 2007, PLAY, her eight album, was a period of her resurgence with sales. She then moved from R&B, onto electronic music with her tenth album Uncontrolled. Alongside this, her compilation albums 181920 and BEST FICTION are two of the best-selling greatest hits albums in Japan. She has been recognized at several ceremonies, including being a recipient at the World Music Awards, Japan Record Awards, Japan Gold Disc Awards. Recording to calculated results by the Recording Industry Association of Japan and her album SWEET19 BLUES was the best-selling album of Japan, until it was released by several more entries during most recent years. Amuro was born to Emiko Taira, and an undisclosed Japanese father, in Naha and she is one of three children by Taira and her father. Taira had divorced when Amuro was four years old, and raised her three children solely in Okinawa, Taira worked as a nursery school employee and bar hostess to support her three children. Although she had no ambition to become a singer, she was discovered at age 12, Amuro was scouted by Masayuki Makino, the owner of Okinawa Actors School, a performing arts school, and eventually enrolled there. Two years later, Makino placed her in a group called Super Monkeys, with five other girls, Anna Makino, Hisako Arakaki, Nanako Takushi. A year after their September 1992 debut with Toshiba-EMI, the relocated to Tokyo. Super Monkeys did not gain success and the group went through constant lineup changes. They changed their name to Namie Amuro with Super Monkeys in 1994 to reflect Amuros rising popularity as an upcoming actress, aside from groups musical activities, Amuro had bit parts in Japanese television series and small films
3.
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
4.
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
5.
Time (magazine)
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Time is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It was founded in 1923 and for decades was dominated by Henry Luce, a European edition is published in London and also covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong, the South Pacific edition, which covers Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, is based in Sydney, Australia. In December 2008, Time discontinued publishing a Canadian advertiser edition, Time has the worlds largest circulation for a weekly news magazine, and has a readership of 26 million,20 million of which are based in the United States. As of 2012, it had a circulation of 3.3 million making it the eleventh most circulated magazine in the United States reception room circuit, as of 2015, its circulation was 3,036,602. Richard Stengel was the editor from May 2006 to October 2013. Nancy Gibbs has been the editor since October 2013. Time magazine was created in 1923 by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce, the two had previously worked together as chairman and managing editor respectively of the Yale Daily News. They first called the proposed magazine Facts and they wanted to emphasize brevity, so that a busy man could read it in an hour. They changed the name to Time and used the slogan Take Time–Its Brief and it set out to tell the news through people, and for many decades the magazines cover depicted a single person. More recently, Time has incorporated People of the Year issues which grew in popularity over the years, notable mentions of them were Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, Matej Turk, etc. The first issue of Time was published on March 3,1923, featuring Joseph G. Cannon, the retired Speaker of the House of Representatives, on its cover, a facsimile reprint of Issue No. 1, including all of the articles and advertisements contained in the original, was included with copies of the February 28,1938 issue as a commemoration of the magazines 15th anniversary. The cover price was 15¢ On Haddens death in 1929, Luce became the dominant man at Time, the Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise 1923–1941. In 1929, Roy Larsen was also named a Time Inc. director, J. P. Morgan retained a certain control through two directorates and a share of stocks, both over Time and Fortune. Other shareholders were Brown Brothers W. A. Harriman & Co. the Intimate History of a Changing Enterprise 1957–1983. According to the September 10,1979 issue of The New York Times, after Time magazine began publishing its weekly issues in March 1923, Roy Larsen was able to increase its circulation by utilizing U. S. radio and movie theaters around the world. It often promoted both Time magazine and U. S. political and corporate interests, Larsen next arranged for a 30-minute radio program, The March of Time, to be broadcast over CBS, beginning on March 6,1931
6.
Nasri (musician)
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Nasri Tony Atweh, better known by his stage name Nasri, is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter and record producer currently residing in Los Angeles, California, United States. He was a musician with a number of singles prior to becoming the lead vocalist and lyricist for the reggae fusion band. A group consisting of Mark Pellizzer, Alex Tanas, and Ben Spivak in 2012, MAGIC. s single Rude became a major international hit single. Atweh is also a songwriter and producer, one half of the songwriting. He and Adam Messinger have produced a string of hits for well-known artists, Nasri was born and raised in Toronto, a child of Christian Palestinian immigrants from Nazareth, and began singing at the age of six. He studied at Senator OConnor College School, and while attending, was part of the choir as well as extra-curricular sports. His yearbook ambition was to be where the music lives, at 19, the Toronto native walked into his local radio station, with a demo in hand, eager to launch his career as an artist. He then landed a deal with Universal Canada and two singles as an R&B singer. In 2002, he won the John Lennon Songwriting Contest with a song he wrote with Adam Messinger, Nasri is part of the writing and production duo The Messengers alongside Adam Messinger. He helped drive the reunion of the New Kids On The Block in 2007 and he wrote songs for and toured with them, often joining them on stage. The Messengers are a Grammy-winning production team, Nasri enjoyed some success in Canada as a solo artist due to his singles Go, Ova N Dun With, and Click, Click, Click. A song titled Best Friend was also heard on radio in his hometown in 2003. According to the material attached to his single Go, he was to release an album titled Invisible Walls sometime in 2003/2004. His vocals were featured in New Kids On The Blocks Summertime, Nasri released a single called You Deserve Better in 2012. He records under the name Nasri because he thinks it sounds cooler, when he was just six years old, he already knew that he was going to be a singer, he tells Rolling Stone. He discovered soul music, and after that he did not want to do pop music anymore, he stopped caring about being famous- and his influences are Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Bob Marley and Sting. Nasri was quoted in an interview by the Rolling Stones saying, “To assume that the race cannot understand a performer’s emotion. I never underestimate people, I think people are very intelligent and you just have to have the courage to give it a shot and make something with some soul
7.
Agent J (album)
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Agent J is the ninth studio album by Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai. It was released on September 21,2007, by Capitol Music Taiwan and it was renamed Love Mission in mainland China. Tsais last studio album, Dancing Diva, not only brought her to the top of the charts, expectations were naturally high for the new record, and Tsai was upping the ante with eleven new tracks and her first ever music movie. The album is set to be as successful as Dancing Diva, the album has sold more than 2.5 million copies in Asia, with more than 200,000 copies sold in Taiwan alone, and became the best-selling album of the year in Taiwan. The eleventh track, Sun Will Never Set, reached number 1 on the Hit FM Annual Top 100 Singles, the title track, Agent J, reached number 14 on the chart. The second track, Bravo Lover, reached number 41 on the chart, the album earned Tsai an MTV Asia Award nomination for Favorite Artist Taiwan. To further promote the album, Tsai released her debut film under the title on September 5,2007. The film is directed by Jeff Chang, Sheng Kuang, and Wei-kang Lai and starring Jolin Tsai, Kim Jaewon, Stephen Fung, and Carl Ng, the film can be divided into three parts. In the first part, Tsai played a girl who traveled in Paris, France and she was taken away by a secret organization and got brainwashed, and she was selected as a special agent due to her lithe physique to help the organization to assassinate people. At the last, she was instructed by the organization to kill her boyfriend, because she lost all her memory, she was confused about the last smile the man gave to her, and she went to his apartment and found the old photos bearing witness to their relationship. In the second part, Tsai played a people in prison and was selected by an organization to carry out an assassination in exchange for her freedom. Her target, Blue Beard, received intelligence and sent two killers to assassinate her in London, England and she met a photographer named Hsiao-tung Lu, and she fled under the cover of the man. They started a relationship, but one day she found her boyfriend was also an agent sent by Blue Beard. On the night she went to kill Blue Beard, Blue Beard shot her boyfriend from behind, in the third part, she played an undercover agent who was instructed to save a fellow agent named Vince who approached a gang boss in Bangkok, Thailand. However, she found the Vince was her ex-boyfriend who was supposed to be died a few years ago was working for the gang boss, one day both of their undercover identities exposed, and they started a gun battle with the gang member. Vince took a bullet in the chest and was died, and he left her alone again
8.
JJ Lin
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JJ Lin is a Singaporean singer, songwriter, record producer and actor based in Taiwan. JJ Lin was managed by Ocean Butterflies from 2003 to 2009, in 2011, he signed to Warner Music Taiwan. JJ had won the Best New Artist for his work on his debut album Music Voyager at the 15th Golden Melody Awards in 2004. He won Best Male Mandopop Performer for his 10th album Stories Untold at the 25th Golden Melody Awards in 2014 and he also performed NDP2015 Theme Song, Our Singapore. In Taiwan, he was awarded the Best New Artist award in the Taiwan Golden Melody Awards and he is well known for his songwriting skills. He has written songs for musical artists while he was still a trainee under Ocean Butterflies. His notable compositions include Remember for Taiwanese singer A-Mei, A-Dos Let Go, in Singapore, he was selected to perform the remixed version of Home, the theme song of the National Day Parade in 2004. Lin has sold 1 million copies in less than a week and is extremely successful throughout Asia, in July 2007, he broke a Guinness record by signing 3,052 CDs in 2 hours and 30 minutes. During the signing, he was not allowed to drink or eat, the average time for him to sign a CD was 2.7 seconds. In May 2008, he performed at the CCTV charity event The Giving of Love, Lin also donated a large sum of money to the rescue efforts and composed a song Love and Hope commemorating the tragedy. In February 2008, Lin released an album entitled Waiting for Love. It has selected tracks from several of his albums spanning from his album to 2007s West Side. Later that year, in October, his album, Sixology was released. 280,000 copies of the album were sold in seven days and his own fashion line, SMUDGE, was opened in Singapore during 2008 Christmas with an unofficial launch. The stores official launch was on 13 March 2009, in May 2009, Lin won three awards at the 14th annual Composers and Authors Society of the UK Awards Presentations, a ceremony that honours performers in the music scene. It was held at the Royal Albert Hall, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace and he was honoured with the Top Local Artiste of the Year award, which is given out to Singaporean artistes who generated the highest royalty earnings for the year. In that same year, Lin won the Singapore Youth Award, in 2009, however, his singing career was put on hold due to his voice being damaged by acid reflux and flu, as well as his hectic touring and recording schedules. It forced him to return to Singapore to recover and receive treatments and he released the seventh album, Hundred Days, on 18 December 2009
9.
Muse (Jolin Tsai album)
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Muse is the twelfth studio album by Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai. It was released on September 12,2012, by Warner Music Taiwan, the artistically-flavored album actually brought back all the sales that were lost in her last studio album, Myself. Referred to as a pop masterpiece, the houses many tracks that are influenced by the elements of art, poetry. Critical and commercial response to the album was positive, it has more than 100,000 copies sold in Taiwan alone. The lead single, The Great Artist, reached number 2 on the Hit FM Annual Top 100 Singles chart, the second track, Dr. Jolin, reached number 10 on the chart. The eighth track, Wandering Poet, reached number 24 on the chart, the album also earned her an MTV Europe Music Award nomination for Best Asian Act
10.
Dancehall
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Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, in the mid-1980s, digital instrumentation became more prevalent, changing the sound considerably, with digital dancehall becoming increasingly characterized by faster rhythms. Dancehall music saw mainstream success in Jamaica throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, by the 2010s, dancehall began to heavily influence the work of established Western artists producers which has helped to further bring the genre into the Western music mainstream. Dancehall is named after Jamaican dance halls in which popular Jamaican recordings were played by local sound systems and they began in the late 1940s among people from the inner city of Kingston, who were not able to participate in dances uptown. Themes of social injustice, repatriation and the Rastafari movement were overtaken by lyrics about dancing, violence, around the same time, producer Don Mais was reworking old rhythms at Channel One Studios, using the Roots Radics band. Sound systems such as Killimanjaro, Black Scorpio, Gemini Disco, Virgo Hi-Fi, Volcano Hi-Power and Aces International soon capitalized on the new sound, deejay records became, for the first time, more important than records featuring singers. The early 1980s also saw the emergence of female deejays in dancehall music, such as Lady G, Lady Saw, other female dancehall stars include artistes like Diana King and in the late 1990s to the 2000s Ce Cile, Spice, Macka Diamond and more. In the mid-1980s, French Caribbean group Kassav, the first in the Caribbean to use MIDI technology, King Jammys 1985 hit, Sleng Teng by Wayne Smith, with an entirely-digital rhythm hook took the dancehall reggae world by storm. Many credit this song as being the first digital rhythm in reggae, however, this is not entirely correct since there are earlier examples of digital productions, such as Horace Fergusons single Sensi Addict produced by Prince Jazzbo in 1984. The Sleng Teng rhythm was used in over 200 subsequent recordings and this deejay-led, largely synthesized chanting with musical accompaniment departed from traditional conceptions of Jamaican popular musical entertainment. Dub poet Mutabaruka said, if 1970s reggae was red, green and gold and it was far removed from reggaes gentle roots and culture, and there was much debate among purists as to whether it should be considered an extension of reggae. This shift in style again saw the emergence of a new generation of artists, such as Buccaneer, Capleton and Shabba Ranks, the deejays became more focused on violence, with Bounty Killer, Mad Cobra, Ninjaman and Buju Banton becoming major figures in the genre. By the early 2000s, dancehall inspired pop music saw increased popularity in Jamaica, as well as in the United States and international markets. This was first seen with artists, such as Sean Paul whos single Get Busy became the first dancehall single to number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. The late 2000s saw domestic success for artists, such as Popcaan, Vybz Kartel, Konshens, Mr. Vegas. Donna P. Kingsley Stewart outlines ten of the major cultural imperatives or principles that constitute the dancehall worldview, such a drastic change in the popular music of the region generated an equally radical transformation in fashion trends, specifically those of its female faction. In lieu of traditional, modest rootsy styles, as dictated by Rastafari-inspired gender roles, women began donning flashy and this transformation is said to coincide with the influx of slack lyrics within dancehall, which objectified women as apparatuses of pleasure. These women would team up others to form modeling posses, or dancehall model groups
