André Le Nôtre
André Le Nôtre rendered as André Le Nostre, was a French landscape architect and the principal gardener of King Louis XIV of France. Most notably, he was the landscape architect who designed the park of the Palace of Versailles, his work represents the height of the French formal garden style, or jardin à la française. Prior to working on Versailles, Le Nôtre collaborated with Louis Le Vau and Charles Le Brun on the park at Vaux-le-Vicomte, his other works include the design of gardens and parks at Chantilly, Saint-Cloud and Saint-Germain. His contribution to planning was significant: at the Tuileries he extended the westward vista, which became the avenue of the Champs-Élysées and comprise the Axe historique. André Le Nôtre was born into a family of gardeners. Pierre Le Nôtre, in charge of the gardens of the Palais des Tuileries in 1572, may have been his grandfather. André's father Jean Le Nôtre was responsible for sections of the Tuileries gardens under Claude Mollet, as head gardener, during the reign of Louis XIII.
André was born on 12 March 1613, was baptised at the Église Saint-Roch. His godfather at the ceremony was an administrator of the royal gardens, his godmother was the wife of Claude Mollet; the family lived in a house within the Tuilieries, André thus grew up surrounded by gardening, acquired both practical and theoretical knowledge. The location allowed him to study in the nearby Palais du Louvre, part of, used as an academy of the arts, he learned mathematics and architecture, entered the atelier of Simon Vouet, painter to Louis XIII, where he met and befriended the painter Charles Le Brun. He learned classical art and perspective, studied for several years under the architect François Mansart, a friend of Le Brun. In 1635, Le Nôtre was named the principal gardener of duc d'Orléans. On 26 June 1637, Le Nôtre was appointed head gardener at the Tuileries, taking over his father's position, he had primary responsibility for the areas of the garden closest to the palace, including the orangery built by Simon Bouchard.
In 1643 he was appointed "draughtsman of plants and terraces" for Anne of Austria, the queen mother, from 1645 to 1646 he worked on the modernisation of the gardens of the Château de Fontainebleau. He was put in charge of all the royal gardens of France, in 1657 he was further appointed Controller-General of the Royal Buildings. There are few direct references to Le Nôtre in the royal accounts, Le Nôtre himself wrote down his ideas or approach to gardening, he expressed himself purely through his gardens. He became a trusted advisor to Louis XIV, in 1675 he was ennobled by the King, he and Le Brun accompanied the court at the siege of Cambrai in 1677. In 1640, he married Françoise Langlois, they had three children. André Le Nôtre's first major garden design was undertaken for Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV's Superintendent of Finances. Fouquet began work on the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte in 1657, employing the architect Louis Le Vau, the painter Charles Le Brun, Le Nôtre; the three designers worked in partnership, with Le Nôtre laying out a grand, symmetrical arrangement of parterres and gravel walks.
Le Vau and Le Nôtre exploited the changing levels across the site, so that the canal is invisible from the house, employed forced perspective to make the grotto appear closer than it is. The gardens were complete by 1661, but only three weeks on 10 September 1661, Fouquet was arrested for embezzling state funds, his artists and craftsmen were taken into the king's service. From 1661, Le Nôtre was working for Louis XIV to build and enhance the garden and parks of the Château de Versailles. Louis extended the existing hunting lodge making it his primary residence and seat of power. Le Nôtre laid out the radiating city plan of Versailles, which included the largest avenue yet seen in Europe, the Avenue de Paris. In the following century, the Versailles design influenced Pierre Charles L'Enfant's master plan for Washington, D. C. See, L'Enfant Plan. In 1661, Le Nôtre was working on the gardens at the Palace of Fontainebleau. In 1663 he was engaged at Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Château de Saint-Cloud, residence of Philippe d'Orléans, where he would oversee works for many years.
From 1663, Le Nôtre was engaged at Château de Chantilly, property of the Prince de Condé, where he worked with his brother-in-law Pierre Desgots until the 1680s. From 1664 he was rebuilding the gardens of the Tuileries, at the behest of Colbert, Louis's chief minister, who still hoped the king would remain in Paris. In 1667 Le Nôtre extended the main axis of the gardens westward, creating the avenue which would become the Champs-Élysées. Colbert commissioned Le Nôtre in 1670, to alter the gardens of his own château de Sceaux, ongoing until 1683. In 1662, he provided designs for Charles II of England. In 1670 Le Nôtre conceived a project for the Castle of Racconigi in Italy, between 1674 and 1698 he remodelled the gardens of Venaria Reale, near Turin. In 1679, he visited Italy, his advice was provided for Charlottenburg Palace and château de Cassel in Germany, with plans for Windsor Castle. Between 1679 and 1691, he was involved in the planning of the gardens of Château de Meudon for François-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois.
His work has been favorably compared and contrasted to the œuvre of Lancelot "Capability" Brown, the English landscape architect. André Le Nôtre was playe
Paris Métro
The Paris Métro is a rapid transit system in the Paris metropolitan area, France. A symbol of the city, it is known for its density within the city limits, uniform architecture and unique entrances influenced by Art Nouveau, it is underground and 214 kilometres long. It has 302 stations. There are 16 lines, numbered 1 to 14 with two lines, 3bis and 7bis, which are named because they started out as branches of lines 3 and 7. Lines are identified on maps by number and colour, direction of travel is indicated by the terminus, it is the second busiest metro system in Europe, after the Moscow Metro, the tenth-busiest in the world. It carried 1.520 billion passengers in 2015, 4.16 million passengers a day, which amounts to 20% of the overall traffic in Paris. It is one of the densest metro systems in the world, with 245 stations within the 86.9 km2 of the city of Paris. Châtelet – Les Halles, with five Métro lines, three RER commuter rail and platforms up to 800 m apart, is one of the world's largest metro stations.
However, the system has poor disabled accessibility, because most stations were built well before this became a consideration. The first line opened without ceremony on 19 July 1900, during the World's Fair; the system expanded until the First World War and the core was complete by the 1920s. Extensions into suburbs and Line 11 were built in the 1930s; the network reached saturation after World War II with new trains to allow higher traffic, but further improvements have been limited by the design of the network and in particular the short distances between stations. Besides the Métro, central Paris and its urban area are served by the RER, developed beginning in the 1960s, several tramway lines, Transilien suburban trains and two VAL lines, serving Charles De Gaulle and Orly airports. In the late 1990s, the automated line 14 was built to relieve RER line A. Métro is the abbreviated name of the company that operated most of the network: La Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain de Paris, shortened to "Le Métropolitain".
It was abbreviated to métro, which became a common word to designate all rapid transit systems in France and in many cities elsewhere. The Métro is operated by the Régie autonome des transports parisiens, a public transport authority that operates part of the RER network, bus services, light rail lines and many bus routes; the name métro was adopted in many languages, making it the most used word for a urban transit system. It is possible that "Compagnie du chemin de fer métropolitain" was copied from the name of London's pioneering underground railway company, the Metropolitan Railway, in business for 40 years prior to the inauguration of Paris's first line. By 1845, Paris and the railway companies were thinking about an urban railway system to link inner districts of the city; the railway companies and the French government wanted to extend main-line railways into a new underground network, whereas the Parisians favoured a new and independent network and feared national takeover of any system it built.
The disagreement lasted from 1856 to 1890. Meanwhile, the population became traffic congestion grew massively; the deadlock gave the city the chance to enforce its vision. Prior to 1845, the urban transport network consisted of a large number of omnibus lines, consolidated by the French government into a regulated system with fixed and unconflicting routes and schedules; the first concrete proposal for an urban rail system in Paris was put forward by civil engineer Florence de Kérizouet. This plan called for a surface cable car system. In 1855, civil engineers Edouard Brame and Eugène Flachat proposed an underground freight urban railroad, due to the high rate of accidents on surface rail lines. On 19 November 1871 the General Council of the Seine commissioned a team of 40 engineers to plan an urban rail network; this team proposed a network with a pattern of routes "resembling a cross enclosed in a circle" with axial routes following large boulevards. On 11 May 1872 the Council endorsed the plan.
After this point, a serious debate occurred over whether the new system should consist of elevated lines or of underground lines. The underground option emerged as the preferred solution because of the high cost of buying land for rights-of-way in central Paris required for elevated lines, estimated at 70,000 francs per metre of line for a 20-metre-wide railroad; the last remaining hurdle was the city's concern about national interference in its urban rail system. The city commissioned renowned engineer Jean-Baptiste Berlier, who designed Paris' postal network of pneumatic tubes, to design and plan its rail system in the early 1890s. Berlier recommended a special track gauge of 1,300 mm to protect the system from national takeover, which inflamed the issue substantially; the issue was settled when the Minister of Public Works begrudgingly recognized the city's right to build a local system on 22 November 1895, by the city's secret designing of the trains and tunnels to be too narrow for main-line trains, while adopting standard gauge as a compromise with the state.
On 20 April 1896, Par
Tangier
Tangier is a major city in northwestern Morocco. It is on the Maghreb coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel; the town is the capital of the Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima region, as well as the Tangier-Assilah prefecture of Morocco. Many civilisations and cultures have influenced the history of Tangier, starting from before the 5th century. Between the period of being a strategic Berber town and a Phoenician trading centre to the independence era around the 1950s, Tangier was a nexus for many cultures. In 1923, it was considered as having international status by foreign colonial powers, became a destination for many European and American diplomats, spies and businessmen; the city is undergoing rapid development and modernisation. Projects include new tourism projects along the bay, a modern business district called Tangier City Centre, a new airport terminal, a new football stadium. Tangier's economy is set to benefit from the new Tanger-Med port.
The Carthaginian name of the city is variously recorded as TNG, TNGʾ, TYNGʾ, TTGʾ. The old Berber name was Tingi, which Ruiz connects to Berber tingis, meaning "marsh"; the Greeks claimed that Tingís had been named for a daughter of the titan Atlas, supposed to support the vault of heaven nearby. Latin Tingis developed into Portuguese Tânger, Spanish Tánger, French Tanger, which entered English as "Tangier" and "Tangiers"; the Arabic name of the town is Tanjah, the modern Berber name is Tanja. Tangier was formally known as Colonia Julia Tingi following its elevation to colony status during the Roman Empire, it is sometimes known as Boughaz. The nicknames "Bride of the North" and "Door of Africa" reference its position in far northwestern Africa near the Strait of Gibraltar. Tangier was founded as a Phoenician colony as early as the 10th century BCE and certainly by the 8th century BCE; the majority of Berber tombs around Tangier had Punic jewelry by the 6th century BCE, speaking to abundant trade by that time.
The Carthaginians developed it as an important port of their empire by the 5th century BCE. It was involved with the expeditions of Hanno the Navigator along the West African coast; the city long preserved its Phoenician traditions, issuing bronze coins under the Mauretanian kings with Punic script and others under the Romans bearing Augustus and Agrippa's heads and Latin script obverse but an image of the Canaanite god Baal reverse. Some editions of Procopius place his Punic stelae in Tingis rather than Tigisis; the Greeks knew this town as Tingis and, with some modification, record the Berber legends of its founding. Tinjis, daughter of Atlas and widow of Antaeus, slept with Hercules and bore him the son Syphax. After Tinjis' death, Syphax founded the port and named it in her honour; the gigantic skeleton and tomb of Antaeus were tourist attractions for ancient visitors. The Caves of Hercules, where he rested on Cape Spartel during his labors, remain one today. Tingis came under the control of the Roman ally Mauretania during the Punic Wars.
Q. Sertorius, in his war against Sulla's regime in Rome and held Tingis for a number of years in the 70s BCE, it was subsequently returned to the Mauretanians but established as a republican free city during the reign of Bocchus III in 38 BCE. Tingis received certain municipal privileges under Augustus and became a Roman colony under Claudius, who made it the provincial capital of Mauretania Tingitana. Under Diocletian's 291 reforms, it became the seat of Tingitana's governor. At the same time, the province itself shrank to little more than the ports along the coast and, owing to the Great Persecution, Tingis was the scene of the martyrdoms by beheading of Saints Marcellus and Cassian in 298. Tingis remained the largest settlement in its province in the 4th century and was developed. Invited by Count Boniface, who feared war with the empress dowager, tens of thousands of Vandals under Gaiseric crossed into North Africa in 429 and occupied Tingis and Mauretania as far east as Calama; when Boniface learned that he and the empress had been manipulated against each other by Aetius, he attempted to compel the Vandals to return to Spain but was instead defeated at Calama in 431.
The Vandals lost the rest of Mauretania in various Berber uprisings. Tingis was reconquered by Belisarius, the general of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, in 533 as part of the Vandalic War; the new provincial administration was moved, however, to the more defensible base at Septem. Byzantine control yielded to pressure from Visigoth Spain around 618. Count Julian of Ceuta led the last defences of Tangier against the Muslim invasion of North Africa. Medieval romance made his betrayal of Christendom a personal vendetta against the Visigoth king Roderic over the honour of his daughter, but Tangier at least fell to a siege by the forces of the Arabian convert Musa bin Nusayr sometime between 707 and 711. While he moved south through central Morocco, he had his deputy at Tangier Tariq ibn Zayid launch the beginning of the Muslim invasion of Spain. Under the Umayyads, Tangier served as the capital of the Moroccan district (Maghr
Queens of the Stone Age
Queens of the Stone Age is an American rock band formed in 1996 in Palm Desert, California. The band's line-up includes founder Josh Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen, Michael Shuman, Dean Fertita, Jon Theodore. Formed after the dissolution of Homme's previous band, Queens of the Stone Age developed a style of riff-oriented, heavy rock music, their sound has since evolved to incorporate a variety of different styles and influences, including working with Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan, a steady contributor to the band. After the breakup of his previous band, Kyuss, in 1995, Josh Homme joined Screaming Trees as a touring guitarist, before deciding to form a new band, Gamma Ray. In 1996 they released the eponymous Gamma Ray EP, featuring "Born to Hula" and "If Only Everything"; the EP featured Matt Cameron of Soundgarden and Pearl Jam, Van Conner from Screaming Trees, percussionist Victor Indrizzo. Gamma Ray changed their name in 1997; the name "Queens of the Stone Age" came from a nickname given to Kyuss by their producer Chris Goss.
Homme said of the name: "Kings would be too macho. The Kings of the Stone Age have axes and wrestle; the Queens of the Stone Age hang out with the Kings of the Stone Age's girlfriends when they wrestle... Rock should be sweet enough for the girls; that way everyone's happy and it's more of a party. Kings of the Stone Age is too lopsided."The first release under the Queens of the Stone Age name was the song "18 A. D." released on the compilation album Burn One Up! Music for Stoners which featured members of the Dutch stoner rock band Beaver; the band's first live appearance was on November 20, 1997, at OK Hotel in Seattle, with Cameron on drums, Mike Johnson of Dinosaur Jr. on bass and John McBain of Monster Magnet on guitar. In December that year, the band released a split EP, Kyuss/Queens of the Stone Age, which featured three tracks from the Gamma Ray sessions as well as three Kyuss tracks recorded in 1995 prior to their breakup. Queens of the Stone Age released their self-titled debut in 1998 on Stone Gossard's and Regan Hagar's label Loosegroove Records, on vinyl by Man's Ruin Records.
Homme played guitar and bass on the album, Alfredo Hernández on the drums, several other contributions by Chris Goss and Hutch. Homme asked Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan to appear on the record, but he was unable due to other commitments. Soon after the recording sessions were finished for the album, former Kyuss bassist Nick Oliveri joined the group, touring commenced with a band consisting of ex-Kyuss members. Guitarist Dave Catching joined shortly after. From this point forward, the band's line-up would change frequently. 2000's Rated R featured a myriad of musicians familiar with Homme and Oliveri's work and "crew" of sorts: among others, drummers Nick Lucero and Gene Trautmann, guitarists Dave Catching, Brendon McNichol, Chris Goss contributed, Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford, recording next door, stepped in for a guest spot on "Feel Good Hit of the Summer." The album garnered positive reviews and received a lot more attention than their debut, despite the fact that the lyrics to "Feel Good Hit of the Summer" were deemed by mega-retailer Wal-Mart to promote drug use causing the record to get pulled from store shelves.
The success of the record earned the band notable opening slots with The Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, a place at Ozzfest 2000. It was during this time that Homme stated: There's a robotic element to our albums, like the repetition of riffs. We wanted to do a record that had a lot of dynamic range. We wanted to set it up in this band. We don't want to get roped in by our own music. If anyone has a good song we should be able to play it. During the 2001 Rock in Rio show, bassist Nick Oliveri was arrested after performing on stage naked, with only his bass guitar covering his genitals. Oliveri apologized to officials. Following his work on Rated R, former Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan joined the band as a full-time member, a position he held until early 2005. Towards the end of the Rated R tour, the band's performance at the 2001 Rock am Ring festival in Germany was, according to Homme, "the worst show we've played and it was in front of 40,000 people." The band decided to tattoo themselves with the starting time of the performance, "Freitag 4:15."
As Oliveri explained: Me, Mark and Hutch, our soundman, have the same tattoo, it's from Rock am Ring festival. The time we had to play was 4:15 in the afternoon and it was just a terrible show, it sucked, it was horrible. That's why I tattooed it on my ribs, where it would hurt, so I'd never forget. Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer, Dave Grohl, joined in late 2001 to record drums for their third album. Songs for the Deaf was released in August 2002, again featuring Lanegan, along with former A Perfect Circle guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen to the touring line-up following the album's release. Featured on Songs for the Deaf for the final track "Mosquito Song" were former A Perfect Circle bassist Paz Lenchantin on viola and piano, Dean Ween on guitar. Thi
Rock music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the early 1950s, developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and particularly in the United Kingdom and in the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style which drew on the genres of blues and blues, from country music. Rock music drew on a number of other genres such as electric blues and folk, incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. Musically, rock has centered on the electric guitar as part of a rock group with electric bass and one or more singers. Rock is song-based music with a 4/4 time signature using a verse–chorus form, but the genre has become diverse. Like pop music, lyrics stress romantic love but address a wide variety of other themes that are social or political. By the late 1960s "classic rock" period, a number of distinct rock music subgenres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock, folk rock, country rock, southern rock, raga rock, jazz-rock, many of which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock, influenced by the countercultural psychedelic and hippie scene.
New genres that emerged included progressive rock. In the second half of the 1970s, punk rock reacted by producing stripped-down, energetic social and political critiques. Punk was an influence in the 1980s on new wave, post-punk and alternative rock. From the 1990s alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break into the mainstream in the form of grunge and indie rock. Further fusion subgenres have since emerged, including pop punk, electronic rock, rap rock, rap metal, as well as conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including the garage rock/post-punk and techno-pop revivals at the beginning of the 2000s. Rock music has embodied and served as the vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major subcultures including mods and rockers in the UK and the hippie counterculture that spread out from San Francisco in the US in the 1960s. 1970s punk culture spawned the goth and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of the protest song, rock music has been associated with political activism as well as changes in social attitudes to race and drug use, is seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult consumerism and conformity.
The sound of rock is traditionally centered on the amplified electric guitar, which emerged in its modern form in the 1950s with the popularity of rock and roll. It was influenced by the sounds of electric blues guitarists; the sound of an electric guitar in rock music is supported by an electric bass guitar, which pioneered in jazz music in the same era, percussion produced from a drum kit that combines drums and cymbals. This trio of instruments has been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments keyboards such as the piano, the Hammond organ, the synthesizer; the basic rock instrumentation was derived from the basic blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed as a rock group. Furthermore, it consists of between three and five members. Classically, a rock band takes the form of a quartet whose members cover one or more roles, including vocalist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass guitarist and keyboard player or other instrumentalist. 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 originate from older musical modes such as the Dorian and Mixolydian, as well as major and minor modes. Harmonies range from the common triad to parallel perfect fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Since the late 1950s and from the mid 1960s onwards, rock music used the verse-chorus structure derived from blues and folk music, but there has been considerable variation from this model. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock; because of its complex history and its 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." Unlike many earlier styles of popular music, rock lyrics have dealt with a wide range of themes, including romantic love, rebellion against "The Establishment", social concerns, life styles. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources such as the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music, rhythm and blues.
Music journalist Robert Christgau characterizes rock lyrics as a "cool medium" with simple diction and repeated refrains, asserts that rock's primary "function" "pertains to music, or, more noise." The predominance of white and middle class musicians in rock music has been noted, rock has been seen as an appropriation of black musical forms for a young and male audience. As a result, it has been seen to articulate the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, "rock and roll implies an identification of male sexuality and aggression". Since the term "rock" started being used in preference to "rock and roll" from the late-1960s, it has been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics, but from wh
The Roots
The Roots are an American hip hop band, formed in 1987 by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia, United States. The Roots serve as the house band on NBC's The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, having served in the same role on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon from 2009–2014; the Roots are known for a jazzy and eclectic approach to hip-hop featuring live musical instruments and the group's work has been met with critical acclaim. ThoughtCo ranked the band #7 on its list of the 25 Best Hip-Hop Groups of All-Time, calling them "Hip-hop's first legitimate band." Although the band no longer tours extensively due to their Tonight Show obligations, their live shows are regarded as the best in the genre. In addition to the band's music, several members of the Roots are involved in side projects, including record production and serving as guests on other musician's albums and live shows; the Roots originated in Philadelphia with Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson and Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter while they were both attending the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts.
They would busk out on the street corners with Questlove playing bucket drums and Tariq rapping over his rhythms. Their first organized gig was a talent show in 1989 at the school where they used the name Radio Activity, which began a series of name changes that progressed through Black to the Future and The Square Roots. Another MC, Malik B. and a permanent bass player, Leonard "Hub" Hubbard, were added to the band before the release of their first album. In 1992, they dropped the "Square" from "Square Roots" because a local folk group had claim to the name. Unable to break through in their native Philadelphia, the band moved to London, where they would release their 1993 debut, Organix; the album was sold independently. In the span of a year, the band developed a cult following in Europe, boosted by touring; the Roots would receive offers from music labels, the band signed with DGC/Geffen. The Roots' first album for DGC, Do You Want More?!!!??!, was released the following year. During the recording process, beatboxer Rahzel and keyboardist Scott Storch, joined the band.
The addition of the two members provided additional depth to the band's sound, energized the Roots' Philadelphia jam sessions, which the band would sample for songs on Do You Want More?!!!??!. The album's opening track features Black Thought introducing the band's sound as "organic hip hop jazz," and indeed; the album spawned three singles with accompanying videos: "Proceed," "Distortion to Static," and "Silent Treatment." The album was a moderate hit among alternative music fans, boosted by the group's appearance at Lollapalooza. In 1995, the band performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival. In the years since its release, Do You Want More?!!!??! has come to be considered to be a classic jazz rap album. The 1996 release Illadelph Halflife was the group's third album and their first to break the Top 40 on the Billboard 200 chart, spurred in part by MTV's airplay of the video for "What They Do" and "Clones", their first single to reach the top five on the rap charts; the band added "What They Do" was the group's first single to hit the Top 40 of Billboard's charts, reaching a peak of #34.
Scott Storch was replaced by a new keyboardist, Kamal Gray. The band's sound would take a darker turn during this period influenced by the Wu-Tang Clan and the RZA's grimy and haunting production style, replete with samples from old jazz and classical music; the album is notable for its many guests and collaborators, including Common, D'Angelo, Q-Tip, others. These collaborations would provide the foundation for the creation of the Soulquarians and permanently forged the Roots' association with the neo-soul subgenre; the group released Things Fall Apart in 1999. This was their breakthrough album, peaking at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 charts and earning a gold record, signifying U. S. sales of at least 500,000 units. The album was certified platinum in April 2013. Mos Def contributed to the track entitled "Double Trouble"; the track "Act Two" features Common. The track "You Got Me", a duet with R&B singer Erykah Badu and Eve and Jill Scott intended by Black Thought for the "unconscious" population, peaked at No. 39 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
At the 42nd Grammy Awards "You Got Me" won the award for Best Rap Performance By a Duo or Group and the album was nominated for Best Rap Album. Steve Huey of the website allmusic.com perceived "a strong affinity for the neo-soul movement" in the album. First-time cameos on Things Fall Apart for Philadelphia natives Beanie Sigel and Eve helped to earn them major record deals later. After this album, Dice Raw left the collective to record his solo debut album Reclaiming the Dead. In the summer, the band performed at the Woodstock'99 concert in New York state. Several members, including longtime member Malik B. left the group. In December 2001, the Roots backed Jay-Z for his MTV Unplugged concert. With heightened popularity came mounting pressure; the Roots released Phrenology in 2002. Despite not charting as high as Things Fall Apart, reaching a peak of No. 28 on the charts, Phrenology was
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is an American rock band from San Francisco, California. The group consists of Peter Hayes, Robert Levon Been, Leah Shapiro. Former drummer Nick Jago left the band in 2008 to focus on his solo project, they have released eight studio albums: B. R. M. C. Take Them On, On Your Own, Baby 81, The Effects of 333, Beat the Devil's Tattoo, Specter at the Feast and Wrong Creatures, as well as several EPs, live albums; the band was formed in 1998 called The Elements. After discovering that another band had the same name, the members changed the name to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, after Marlon Brando's motorcycle gang in the 1953 film The Wild One. Bassist Robert Levon Been and guitarist Peter Hayes met at high school in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Lafayette and formed a band, Hayes having left The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Been has said in interviews that Hayes had a turbulent home life and would park and sleep in his car outside the Been household. After about a year of doing this and his father Michael persuaded Hayes to live with them.
The pair started looking for a drummer. They met Nick Jago, from Devon, who had moved to California to be with his parents after spending some time at Winchester School of Art, where he was studying fine art; the vocals are shared between Peter Hayes. The band's first two records were indebted to classic hard rock influenced by Led Zeppelin and encompassed slower paced psychedelic rock, space rock, noise pop influences from bands such as The Verve, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and The Jesus and Mary Chain, their second album Take Them On, On Your Own has several songs such as "Generation" and "US Government" that are critical of the United States government. Been used the pseudonym'Robert Turner' on the first two records, in an attempt not to be linked to his father, he dropped this identity when promoting Howl. The senior Been toured with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club as part of their sound crew. In 2003, a concert in Leeds, West Yorkshire, had to be cancelled halfway through the set, after Leeds City Council officials suspected the 150-year-old floor of Leeds Town Hall might collapse.
This led to the band sometimes being referred to as'the band who broke the floor'. Problems with drummer Nick Jago began surfacing publicly at the 2003 NME Awards, when Jago remained on stage for nine minutes silent, while accepting an award. After conflict with their record label, the band was dropped by Virgin Records in 2004. Jago's conflicts came to a head in Scotland, when Hayes came to blows after a tense gig. Before long, Jago quit; as such, Jago did not take part in the sessions for Howl. Instead, he went through various rehab attempts rejoining the band in time to record one track, the ballad "Promise". In 2005, the band signed to Echo in the UK, RCA in the U. S. Howl was released to favorable reviews. Howl had a stripped-down folk style, a departure from the earlier B. R. M. C. Sound. Several of the songs on Howl are said to have been written long before the idea of B. R. M. C. was conceived. On tour for this album the band employed a temporary fourth member, guitarist Spike Keating. By 2007, Nick Jago had rejoined BRMC.
The band's fourth album, Baby 81, was released on April 30, 2007 in the UK and Europe and May 1, 2007 in the U. S. On June 6, 2007, BRMC performed in a concert, streamed live on the internet via MSN Music. In June 2008, Jago once again left BRMC's touring line-up, being replaced by The Raveonettes' touring drummer Leah Shapiro. Jago stated he "took it as I am fired again and to be honest with you I respect their decision"; however and Been issued a statement reading: "Nick won't be joining us for the upcoming European tour, but it's not true that he is fired. We just feel Nick needs time to sort out what he wants right now, his heart and all his energy and attention is on his own solo project and he needs to see that through." However, in October 2015 Hayes admitted that "We were ready to be an international band that never toured the States again. Thank God, we got his visa back and we were able to play together again until we fired him, but that’s a whole other story when things got darker". On October 27, 2008, the band announced via a MySpace bulletin that they would release their newest album independently.
The album would be their first release through their own "Abstract Dragon" label. The album, The Effects of 333 is instrumental and was made available as a digital download through their music store on 3:33 A. M Pacific Time on November 1, 2008. On November 10, 2009, BRMC released a live DVD through Vagrant Records, it was recorded in Glasgow and Dublin during the Baby 81 world tour. A song by BRMC, "Done All Wrong", appeared on the soundtrack to the 2009 film The Twilight Saga: New Moon. BRMC's sixth studio album, Beat the Devil's Tattoo was released March 8, 2010 in the UK and Europe and March 9, 2010 in North America; the band went on a world tour. On August 19, 2010, after the band's performance at the Pukkelpop Festival in Belgium, Robert's father Michael Been died backstage of a heart attack. On November 1, 2010, the band released their second live DVD, called Live in London, on their own website and at HMV stores in the UK; the DVD would be for sale at the band's headlining shows throughout the tour.
It was filmed in the same year. This is the last project Michael Been has worked on with the band, mixing i
