1.
Santa Barbara, California
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Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County in the U. S. state of California. Situated on a section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States. Santa Barbaras climate is described as Mediterranean, and the city has been promoted as the American Riviera. The population of the county in 2010 was 423,895. In 2004, the sector accounted for fully 35% of local employment. Education in particular is well represented, with four institutions of learning on the south coast. The Santa Barbara Airport serves the city, as does Amtrak, U. S. Highway 101 connects the Santa Barbara area with Los Angeles to the southeast and San Francisco to the northwest. Behind the city, in and beyond the Santa Ynez Mountains, is the Los Padres National Forest, Channel Islands National Park and Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary are located approximately 20 miles offshore. Evidence of human habitation of the area begins at least 13,000 years ago, an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 Chumash lived on the south coast of Santa Barbara County at the time of the first European explorations. Five Chumash villages flourished in the area, portuguese explorer João Cabrilho, sailing for the Kingdom of Spain, sailed through what is now called the Santa Barbara Channel in 1542, anchoring briefly in the area. In 1602, Spanish maritime explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno gave the name Santa Barbara to the channel, a land expedition led by Gaspar de Portolà visited in 1769, and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespi, who accompanied the expedition, named a large native town Laguna de la Concepcion. Cabrillos earlier name, however, is the one that has survived, the first permanent European residents were Spanish missionaries and soldiers under Felipe de Neve, who came in 1782 to build the Presidio. They were sent both to fortify the region against expansion by other such as England and Russia. Many of the Spaniards brought their families with them, and those formed the nucleus of the small town – at first just a cluster of adobes – that surrounded the Presidio, the Santa Barbara Mission was established on the Feast of Saint Barbara, December 4,1786. It was the tenth of the California Missions to be founded by the Spanish Franciscans and it was dedicated by Padre Fermín Lasuén, who succeeded Padre Junipero Serra as the second president and founder of the California Franciscan Mission Chain. The Mission fathers began the work of converting the native Chumash to Christianity. The Chumash laborers built a connection between the creek and the Santa Barbara Mission water system through the use of a dam. During the following decades, many of the natives died of such as smallpox
2.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
3.
New York (state)
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New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal. Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita. Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, also within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
4.
Gothic rock
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Gothic rock is a musical subgenre of post-punk that formed during the late 1970s. Gothic rock bands grew from the ties they had to the English punk rock. Proto-gothic bands include Siouxsie and the Banshees, Joy Division, Bauhaus, the genre itself was defined as a separate movement from post-punk due to its darker music accompanied by introspective and romantic lyrics. Gothic rock then gave rise to a subculture that included clubs, fashion. Reynolds described the style as consisting of deep, droning alloys of Jim Morrison. Siouxsie and the Banshees tended to use flanging guitar effects, producing a brittle, cold, several acts used drum machines downplaying the rhythms backbeat. Gothic rock typically deals with dark themes addressed through lyrics and the musics atmosphere, the poetic sensibilities of the genre led gothic rock lyrics to exhibit literary romanticism, morbidity, existentialism, religious symbolism or supernatural mysticism. Musicians who initially shaped the aesthetics and musical conventions of gothic rock include Marc Bolan, the Velvet Underground, the Doors, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, journalist Kurt Loder would write that the song All Tomorrows Parties by the Velvet Underground is a mesmerizing gothic-rock masterpiece. However, Reynolds considers Alice Cooper as the true ungodly godfather of goth due to his theatrics, Nicos 1969 album The Marble Index is sometimes described as the first Goth album. With its stark sound, somber lyrics, and Nicos deliberate change in her look, J. G. Ballard was a strong lyrical influence for many of the early gothic rock groups, the Birthday Party drew on Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire. In 1976, Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice was published, the main character, although dark, wanted companionship and love. The book, according to music journalist Dave Thompson, slowly created an audience for gothic rock by word of mouth, the same year saw the punk rock band the Damned debut. The groups vocalist, Dave Vanian, was a gravedigger who dressed like a vampire. Critic John Stickney used the gothic rock to describe the music of the Doors in October 1967. Stickney wrote that the band met the journalists in the gloomy vaulted wine cellar of the Delmonico hotel, the author noted that contrary to the pleasant, amusing hippies, there was violence in their music and a dark atmosphere on stage during their concerts. In the late 1970s, the gothic was used to describe the atmosphere of post-punk bands like Siouxsie. In March 1979, Kent used the adjective in his review of Magazines second album. Kent noted that there was a new sense of authority to their music
5.
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
6.
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
7.
Electronic music
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In general, a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound producing devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, purely electronic sound production can be achieved using devices such as the theremin, sound synthesizer, and computer. During the 1920s and 1930s, electronic instruments were introduced and the first compositions for instruments were composed. Musique concrète, created in Paris in 1948, was based on editing together recorded fragments of natural and industrial sounds, Music produced solely from electronic generators was first produced in Germany in 1953. Electronic music was created in Japan and the United States beginning in the 1950s. An important new development was the advent of computers for the purpose of composing music, algorithmic composition was first demonstrated in Australia in 1951. In America and Europe, live electronics were pioneered in the early 1960s, during the 1970s to early 1980s, the monophonic Minimoog became once the most widely used synthesizer at that time in both popular and electronic art music. In the 1980s, electronic music became dominant in popular music, with a greater reliance on synthesizers, and the adoption of programmable drum machines. Electronically produced music became prevalent in the domain by the 1990s. Contemporary electronic music includes many varieties and ranges from art music to popular forms such as electronic dance music. Today, pop music is most recognizable in its 4/4 form. At the turn of the 20th century, experimentation with emerging electronics led to the first electronic musical instruments and these initial inventions were not sold, but were instead used in demonstrations and public performances. The audiences were presented with reproductions of existing music instead of new compositions for the instruments, while some were considered novelties and produced simple tones, the Telharmonium accurately synthesized the sound of orchestral instruments. It achieved viable public interest and made progress into streaming music through telephone networks. Critics of musical conventions at the time saw promise in these developments, ferruccio Busoni encouraged the composition of microtonal music allowed for by electronic instruments. He predicted the use of machines in future music, writing the influential Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music, futurists such as Francesco Balilla Pratella and Luigi Russolo began composing music with acoustic noise to evoke the sound of machinery. They predicted expansions in timbre allowed for by electronics in the influential manifesto The Art of Noises, developments of the vacuum tube led to electronic instruments that were smaller, amplified, and more practical for performance. In particular, the theremin, ondes Martenot and trautonium were commercially produced by the early 1930s, from the late 1920s, the increased practicality of electronic instruments influenced composers such as Joseph Schillinger to adopt them
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.
Dance Club Songs
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The Dance Club Songs chart is a weekly national survey of the songs that are most popular in U. S. dance clubs. It is compiled by Billboard exclusively from playlists submitted by nightclub disc jockeys who must apply, the current number-one song on the Dance Club Songs chart for the issue dated April 15,2017, is Lick Me Up by Tony Moran and Dani Toro featuring Zhana Roiya. Dance Club Songs has undergone several incarnations since its inception in 1974, originally a top-ten list of tracks that garnered the largest audience response in New York City discothèques, the chart began on October 26,1974 under the title Disco Action. The chart went on to feature playlists from various cities around the country from week to week, Billboard continued to run regional and city-specific charts throughout 1975 and 1976 until the issue dated August 28,1976, when a thirty-position National Disco Action Top 30 premiered. During the first half of the 1980s the chart maintained eighty slots until March 16,1985 when the Disco charts were splintered and renamed, two charts appeared, Hot Dance/Disco, which ranked club play, and Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales, which ranked 12-inch single sales. Only Hot Dance Club Songs still exists today and these stations are also a part of the electronically monitored panel that encompasses the Hot 100. Radio airplay is not limited to that counted on the Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart, during this time, Billboard rival publication Record World was the first to compile a dance chart which incorporated club play on a national level. Noted Billboard statistician Joel Whitburn has since adopted Record Worlds chart data from the weeks between March 29,1975 and August 21,1976 into Billboards club play history. For the sake of continuity, Record Worlds national chart is incorporated into both Whitburns Dance/Disco publication as well as the 1975 and 1976 number-ones lists, with the issue dated August 28,1976, Billboard premiered its own national chart and their data is used from this date forward. For the full list of all 100 All Time Top Dance Club Artists, both Enrique Iglesias and Dave Aude are tied with 14 number-ones on the chart, the most among male artists. Iglesias, however, is the male vocalist to accomplish this feat, while Aude is the only producer to achieve this milestone. Four acts have attained thirteen number-one songs, Whitney Houston, Kylie Minogue, Yoko Ono, Kylie Minogue became the first act to have two songs in the top three on March 5,2011. Her song Better than Today was number-one while Higher, a song by Taio Cruz on which Minogue features, was number three, the first 12-inch single made commercially available to the public was Ten Percent by Double Exposure in 1976. The first number one on Billboards Disco Action chart was Never Can Say Goodbye by Gloria Gaynor in 1974, the first number one on Billboards National Disco Action Top 30 was You Should Be Dancing by the Bee Gees in 1976. Beginning with the February 23,1991 issue, the dance chart became song specific, in all scenarios this was due to the tracks being included in film soundtrack albums. In 1978, four tracks from Thank God Its Friday, in 1980, madonna holds the record for the most chart hits, the most top-twenty hits, the most top-ten hits and the most total weeks at number one. The Trammps are the act to replace themselves at number one. The longest running number-ones on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart are Bad Luck by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes2 in 1975, both entries spent eleven weeks in the top spot
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.
Depeche Mode
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Depeche Mode /dᵻˌpɛʃˈmoʊd/ are an English electronic band that formed in 1980 in Basildon, Essex. The group consists of founders Dave Gahan, Martin Gore, Depeche Mode released their debut album Speak & Spell in 1981, bringing the band onto the British new wave scene. Original band member Vince Clarke, left the band after the release of the album, leaving the band as a trio to record A Broken Frame, released the following year. Gore took over the songwriting duties and, later in 1982, Alan Wilder officially joined the band to fill Clarkes spot. Depeche Mode have been a trio again since 1995, when Wilder left, the bands last albums of the 1980s, Black Celebration and Music for the Masses, established them as a dominant force on the mainstream electronic music scene. A highlight of this era was the concert at the Pasadena Rose Bowl. In the new decade, Depeche Mode released Violator, a mainstream success, now a trio once again, the band released Ultra in 1997, recorded at the height of Gahans near-fatal drug abuse, Gores alcoholism and seizures, and Fletchers depression. Depeche Mode have had 50 songs in the UK Singles Chart and thirteen top 10 albums in the UK chart, Q included the band in the list of the 50 Bands That Changed the World. Depeche Mode also rank number 98 on VH1s 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, Depeche Modes origins date to 1977, when schoolmates Vince Clarke and Andy Fletcher formed a Cure-influenced band called No Romance In China, with Clarke on vocals and guitar and Fletcher on bass. Fletcher would later recall, Why am I in the band and it was accidental right from the beginning. I was actually forced to be in the band, I played the guitar and I had a bass, it was a question of them roping me in. In 1979, Clarke played guitar in an Ultravox rip-off band, in 1978–79, Martin Gore played guitar in an acoustic duo, Norman and the Worms, with school friend Phil Burdett on vocals. In 1979, Marlow, Gore and friend Paul Redmond formed a band called the French Look, with Marlow on vocals/keyboards, Gore on guitar and Redmond on keyboards. In March 1980, Clarke, Gore and Fletcher formed a band called Composition of Sound, with Clarke on vocals/guitar, Gore on keyboards and Fletcher on bass. Soon after the formation of Composition of Sound, Clarke heard Wirral band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, along with OMD, other early influences included the Human League, Daniel Miller and Fad Gadget. Clarke and Fletcher switched to synthesisers, working odd jobs in order to buy or borrow the instruments from friends. Dave Gahan joined the band in 1980 after Clarke heard him perform at a scout hut jam session, singing a rendition of David Bowies Heroes. When explaining the choice for the new name taken from a French fashion magazine, Dépêche mode, Gore said, I like the sound of that
12.
Dave Gahan
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David Dave Gahan is an English singer-songwriter, best known as the baritone lead singer of the electronic band Depeche Mode since their debut in 1980. He is also a solo artist, releasing albums in 2003 and 2007. Three of these songs were released as singles, including Suffer Well in 2005, Hole to Feed in 2009, in 2012 and 2015, he also contributed lyrics and sang lead vocals on the Soulsavers albums The Light the Dead See and Angels & Ghosts. Q magazine ranked Gahan no.73 on the list of the 100 Greatest Singers, Gahan was born as David Callcott into a working-class family, to parents Len Callcott of Malaysian descent and his wife Sylvia, Dave was only six months old when his father left the family. Sylvia and Len divorced two years later and his mother moved Dave and sister Sue to Basildon, Essex, after Sylvia met, the Gahan family continued to grow with the birth of two more half-brothers Peter and Phil. Dave and Sue were raised under the impression that their mothers second husband, in 1972, when Gahan was 10 years old, his stepfather died. Gahan recalled how he came one day and found this bloke at home. Of the incident, he has said, Ill never forget that day, when I came home from school, there was this stranger in my mums house. My mother introduced him to me as my real dad, I remember I said, that was impossible because my father was dead. How was I supposed to know who that man was, from that day on, Len often visited the house, until one year later he disappeared again. Since then he had no contact with us, by growing older, I thought about him more and more. The only thing my mother would say, was that he moved out to Jersey to open a hotel. Mum had kept it back from me til there was a need to tell me about my father, its a different generation. He enjoyed the thrill of stealing cars, driving them around, Gahan tells of the time, I was pretty wild. I loved the excitement of nicking a motor, screeching off, hiding behind the wall with your heart beating gives you a real kick – will they get you. In his final year at school, he applied for a job as an apprentice fitter with North Thames Gas. He was told by his officer to be honest with the interviewer. As a result, he did not get the job which and his punishment was weekend custody at a sub-Borstal attendance centre in Romford for one year
