1.
Baroque pop
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Baroque pop is a pop music subgenre that fuses classical music, orchestral pop, rock, and Baroque music. It is identifiable for its use of melodies, functional harmony patterns. The genre emerged in the 1960s after pop musicians and record producers began placing the harpsichord in the foreground of their arrangements, other typical baroque pop instrumentation includes string sections, French horns, and oboes. Baroque pops mainstream popularity faded by the 1970s, partially because punk rock, disco and hard rock took over, nonetheless, music was still produced within the genres tradition. Philadelphia soul in the 1970s and chamber pop in the 1990s both incorporated the spirit of baroque pop while the latter contested much of the low fidelity musical aesthetic. Baroque pop, stylistically, fuses elements of rock with classical music, often incorporating layered harmonies, strings and its prominent characteristics are the use of contrapuntal melodies and functional harmony patterns. It was intended to be a serious and mature outgrowth of rock music. English baroque is used by journalist Bob Stanley to describe a subset that existed between 1968 and 1973, starting in the 1960s, pop musicians and record producers like Phil Spector and the Beach Boys Brian Wilson began placing the harpsichord in the foreground of their arrangements. Harpsichords were widely available in recording studios, and had used in popular music since as early as the 1940s. One of the first pop hits to use a harpsichord was the Jamies Summertime, Summertime. Later examples range from the Beach Boys I Get Around and When I Grow Up to the Righteous Brothers Youve Lost That Lovin Feelin and the Mamas & the Papas Monday, Monday. The Boston Globes Matthew Guerriri speculates that the harpsichord may have been desirable for its buzzing, stinging timbre, slates Forrest Wickman credits Wilson and the Beatles producer, George Martin, as some of the men most responsible for the move into baroque pop. Along with Burt Bacharach, Spector had melded pop music with classical elements before they were melded with rock, writer Andrew Jackson suggests that the era of baroque pop in which rock melded with classical elements was prefaced by the Rolling Stones and Brian Wilson. The Beatles benefited from the music skills of Martin, who played a baroque harpsichord solo on the song In My Life. Author Joe Harrington noted that after its release, many baroque-rock works would soon appear, producer Tommy LiPuma believed, Once the Beatles featured that harpsichord sound on In My Life, pop producers began working it in. The genre is traced to the United States and the United Kingdom, by early 1966, various groups began using baroque and classical instrumentation, described as a baroque rock movement by Gendron. The Zombies single Shes Not There marked a point for British baroque pop. Stanley explains that the song didnt feature any oboes but stuck out rather dramatically in 1964, Shes Not There would inspire New York musician Michael Brown to form the Left Banke, whose song Walk Away Renée is considered by Stanley to be the first recognizable baroque pop single
2.
Cher
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Cher is an American singer and actress. Commonly referred to as the Goddess of Pop, she is described as embodying female autonomy in a male-dominated industry. Cher gained popularity in 1965 as one-half of the folk rock husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher after their song I Got You Babe reached number one on the American and she began her solo career simultaneously, releasing in 1966 her first million-seller song, Bang Bang. She became a personality in the 1970s with her shows The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, watched by over 30 million viewers weekly during its three-year run. She emerged as a trendsetter by wearing elaborate outfits on her television shows. While working on television, she established herself as a solo artist with the U. S. Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping singles Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves, Half-Breed, and Dark Lady. After her divorce from Sonny Bono in 1975, Cher launched a comeback in 1979 with the disco-oriented album Take Me Home and earned $300,000 a week for her 1980–82 residency show in Las Vegas. In 1982, Cher made her Broadway debut in the play Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean and starred in the film adaptation of the same title. She subsequently earned critical acclaim for her performances in such as Silkwood, Mask. She then revived her career by recording the rock-inflected albums Cher, Heart of Stone. She reached a new peak in 1998 with the album Believe. It also features the use of Auto-Tune, also known as the Cher effect. Her 2002–2005 Living Proof, The Farewell Tour became one of the concert tours of all time. In 2008, she signed a $180 million deal to headline the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for three years, after seven years of absence, she returned to film in the 2010 musical Burlesque. Chers first studio album in 12 years, Closer to the Truth, Cher has won a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, an Academy Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Cannes Film Festival Award, and a special CFDA Fashion Award, among several other honors. Throughout her career, she has sold 100 million records worldwide and she is the only artist to date to have a number-one single on a Billboard chart in each decade from the 1960s to the 2010s. Outside of her music and acting, she is noted for her views, philanthropic endeavors and social activism, including LGBT rights. Cher was born Cherilyn Sarkisian in El Centro, California, on May 20,1946, Chers father was rarely home when she was an infant, and her parents divorced when Cher was ten months old
3.
Phonograph record
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The groove usually starts near the periphery and ends near the center of the disc. The phonograph disc record was the medium used for music reproduction until late in the 20th century. It had co-existed with the cylinder from the late 1880s. Records retained the largest market share even when new formats such as compact cassette were mass-marketed, by the late 1980s, digital media, in the form of the compact disc, had gained a larger market share, and the vinyl record left the mainstream in 1991. The phonograph record has made a resurgence in the early 21st century –9.2 million records were sold in the U. S. in 2014. Likewise, in the UK sales have increased five-fold from 2009 to 2014, as of 2017,48 record pressing facilities remain worldwide,18 in the United States and 30 in other countries. The increased popularity of vinyl has led to the investment in new, only two producers of lacquers remains, Apollo Masters in California, USA, and MDC in Japan. Vinyl records may be scratched or warped if stored incorrectly but if they are not exposed to heat or broken. The large cover are valued by collectors and artists for the space given for visual expression, in the 2000s, these tracings were first scanned by audio engineers and digitally converted into audible sound. Phonautograms of singing and speech made by Scott in 1860 were played back as sound for the first time in 2008, along with a tuning fork tone and unintelligible snippets recorded as early as 1857, these are the earliest known recordings of sound. In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, unlike the phonautograph, it was capable of both recording and reproducing sound. Despite the similarity of name, there is no evidence that Edisons phonograph was based on Scotts phonautograph. Edison first tried recording sound on a paper tape, with the idea of creating a telephone repeater analogous to the telegraph repeater he had been working on. The tinfoil was wrapped around a metal cylinder and a sound-vibrated stylus indented the tinfoil while the cylinder was rotated. The recording could be played back immediately, Edison also invented variations of the phonograph that used tape and disc formats. A decade later, Edison developed a greatly improved phonograph that used a wax cylinder instead of a foil sheet. This proved to be both a better-sounding and far more useful and durable device, the wax phonograph cylinder created the recorded sound market at the end of the 1880s and dominated it through the early years of the 20th century. Berliners earliest discs, first marketed in 1889, but only in Europe, were 12.5 cm in diameter, both the records and the machine were adequate only for use as a toy or curiosity, due to the limited sound quality
4.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
5.
The Walking Dead (TV series)
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The Walking Dead is an American horror drama television series developed by Frank Darabont, based on the comic book series of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. Andrew Lincoln plays the lead character, sheriffs deputy Rick Grimes. Grimes reunites with his family and becomes the leader of a group he forms with other survivors, together they struggle to survive and adapt in a post-apocalyptic world filled with walkers and opposing groups of survivors, who are often more dangerous than the walkers themselves. Much of the takes place in and around Atlanta, Georgia and Alexandria, Virginia. The Walking Dead premiered in the United States on October 31,2010, exclusively shown on television channel AMC. As a result of very favorable Nielsen ratings that rank the show unprecedentedly high for a cable series, beginning with its third season, The Walking Dead attracts the most 18- to 49-year-old viewers of any cable or broadcast television series. Its eighth season will debut in October 2017, an AMC companion series, Fear the Walking Dead, debuted on August 23,2015. The Walking Dead takes place after the onset of a zombie apocalypse. The zombies, colloquially referred to as walkers, shamble towards living humans, humans they bite or scratch become infected and slowly turn into walkers as well. It is revealed early in the series that all living humans carry this pathogen, so if they die from any other cause. The only way to kill a walker is to damage its brain or otherwise fully destroy the body. The series centers on sheriffs deputy Rick Grimes, who wakes up from a coma to discover this apocalypse, sheriffs deputy Rick Grimes awakens from a coma discovering a world overrun by zombies. After befriending Morgan Jones, Rick travels to Atlanta, Georgia and finds a group of survivors including his wife Lori, his son Carl, the group travels to the Centers for Disease Control but find from the sole remaining CDC member that no cure exists for the epidemic. Traveling from Atlanta, Ricks group takes shelter at Hershel Greenes farm while they search for Carol Peletiers missing daughter, Rick is forced to kill Shane in self-defense. The farm is overrun with walkers, and Hershels surviving family join Ricks group as they move on. Months from fleeing Hershels farm, Ricks group finds a prison they clear of zombies to make their new home, Lori dies in childbirth, and Rick becomes withdrawn. Meanwhile, Andrea and Michonne – who rescued Andrea after she got separated from the others – are brought to the town of Woodbury. Months after the Governors attack, a deadly flu kills many of the population at the prison, the Governor finds his former right-hand men and kill them, taking over their group to lead a new attack on the prison, forcing the remaining group to separate and flee
6.
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
7.
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
8.
Frankie Valli
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Frankie Valli is an American singer, known as the frontman of The Four Seasons beginning in 1960. He is known for his powerful falsetto voice. Valli scored 29 Top 40 hits with The Four Seasons, one Top 40 hit under The Four Seasons alias The Wonder Who. and nine Top 40 hits as a solo artist. As a member of The Four Seasons, Vallis number-one hits included Sherry, Big Girls Dont Cry, Walk Like a Man, Rag Doll, Vallis recording of the song Cant Take My Eyes Off You reached number two in 1967. Youre Ready Now, a Valli solo recording from 1966, became a hit in the UK as part of the Northern soul scene. As a solo artist, Valli scored number-one hits with the songs My Eyes Adored You and Grease. Valli, Tommy DeVito, Nick Massi and Bob Gaudio – the original members of The Four Seasons – were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1999. Valli was born Francesco Stephen Castelluccio, the eldest of three sons to an Italian family in the First Ward of Newark, New Jersey. His father, Anthony Castelluccio, was a barber and display designer for Lionel model trains, his mother, Mary Rinaldi, was a homemaker and beer company employee. He was inspired to take up a career at the age of seven after his mother took him to see the young Frank Sinatra at the Paramount Theater in New York City. One of his favorite singers was Texas Jean Valli, from whom he obtained his last name. Until he could support himself with music, he worked as a barber, Vallis birth year has been called into question. Valli never addressed the issue himself, until the 2007 posting at the Official Frankie Valli Site, sponsored by his current record label, much of the previous official publicity surrounding his career used 1937 as the birth year. Other sources, such as the Bear Family Records release, titled The Four Lovers, as well as a 1965 mug shot, available through The Smoking Gun, Valli began his singing career in the early 1950s with the Variety Trio. Vallis desire to sing in public was granted when, having heard Valli sing. In late 1952, the Variety Trio disbanded and Valli, along with Tommy DeVito, became part of the band at The Strand in New Brunswick. For his part, Valli played bass and sang and he cut his first single, My Mothers Eyes, in 1953 as Frankie Valley, a variation on a name he adopted from Texas Jean Valli, a female hillbilly singer as discussed in a 2014 article. Frankie said in 2010 that Jean took him to music publishers Paul and Dave Kapp
9.
A-side and B-side
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The terms A-side and B-side refer to the two sides of 78,45, and 33 1/3 rpm phonograph records, whether singles, extended plays, or long-playing records. Creedence Clearwater Revival had hits with both A-side and B-side releases, others took the opposite approach, producer Phil Spector was in the habit of filling B-sides with on-the-spot instrumentals that no one would confuse with the A-side. With this practice, Spector was assured that airplay was focused on the side he wanted to be the hit side, the earliest 10-inch,78 rpm, shellac records were single sided. Double-sided recordings, with one song on side, were introduced in Europe by Columbia Records. There were no record charts until the 1930s, and radio stations did not play recorded music until the 1950s, in this time, A-sides and B-sides existed, but neither side was considered more important, the side did not convey anything about the content of the record. The term single came into use with the advent of vinyl records in the early 1950s. At first, most record labels would randomly assign which song would be an A-side, under this random system, many artists had so-called double-sided hits, where both songs on a record made one of the national sales charts, or would be featured on jukeboxes in public places. As time wore on, however, the convention for assigning songs to sides of the record changed. By the early sixties, the song on the A-side was the song that the company wanted radio stations to play. It was not until 1968, for instance, that the production of albums on a unit basis finally surpassed that of singles in the United Kingdom. In the late 1960s stereo versions of pop and rock songs began to appear on 45s. The majority of the 45s were played on AM radio stations, by the early 1970s, double-sided hits had become rare. Album sales had increased, and B-sides had become the side of the record where non-album, non-radio-friendly, with the advent of cassette and compact disc singles in the late 1980s, the A-side/B-side differentiation became much less meaningful. With the decline of cassette singles in the 1990s, the A-side/B-side dichotomy became virtually extinct, as the dominant medium. However, the term B-side is still used to refer to the tracks or coupling tracks on a CD single. With the advent of downloading music via the Internet, sales of CD singles and other media have declined. B-side songs may be released on the record as a single to provide extra value for money. There are several types of material released in this way, including a different version, or, in a concept record
10.
Enemy (2013 film)
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Enemy is a 2013 psychological thriller film directed by Denis Villeneuve, produced by M. S. Faura and Niv Fichman and written by Javier Gullón, loosely adapted from José Saramagos 2002 novel The Double, the film stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Mélanie Laurent and Sarah Gadon and revolves around two men who are physically identical. It is also internationally co-produced by production companies from Spain and Canada, the film premiered in the Special Presentation section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival on September 8,2013. It was then released on March 14,2014 by A24 and it earned $3.4 million at the box office and received positive reviews. It was named Best Canadian Film of the Year at the Toronto Film Critics Association Awards 2014, a man attends an erotic show at an underground club that culminates with a naked woman on the verge of crushing a live tarantula under her platform high-heel. Elsewhere, a pregnant young woman alone on a bed. Adam Bell, a college history professor, rents a movie, Where Theres a Will Theres a Way. Adam sees an actor briefly, the man at the show, verifying online, Adam identifies the actor as Daniel St. Claire, the stage name for Anthony Claire. Adam rents the other two films in which Anthony has appeared and develops an interest in the man, who appears to be his physical doppelgänger, adams girlfriend Mary becomes troubled by the change in his behavior. Adam stalks Anthony, visiting his office and calling him at home, everyone, including Anthonys pregnant wife Helen, confuses both. In a separate image, a giant spider lurks among the Toronto skyline. Adam complies, and Anthony takes Mary to the hotel where the two men met, meanwhile, Adam breaks into Anthonys apartment and sleeps with Helen, who seems to realize her partner is different and asks Adam to stay. At the hotel, Mary panics when she sees Anthonys ring mark and demands to know who he is and she forces Anthony to drive her home, but the two get into a fight, and the car is involved in a high-speed crash, which presumably kills them both. The next day Adam dresses in Anthonys clothes and finds the key in a jacket pocket. Helen gets out of the shower and enters the bedroom, Adam asks Helen if she is doing anything that night and follows up the question by telling her he will be busy then. As he enters the bedroom, he beholds the now room-sized tarantula cowered against the rear wall, Adam, with a resigned look, sighs. Both director Villeneuve and leading actor Gyllenhaal spoke of their desire to make the film an exploration of the subconscious. To Villeneuve, Enemy is ultimately about repetition, the question of how to live, regarding the two physically identical characters, You dont know if they are two in reality, or maybe from a subconscious point of view, theres just one, said Villeneuve
