1.
Album
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Album, is a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item on CD, record, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century, first as books of individual 78rpm records, vinyl LPs are still issued, though in the 21st century album sales have mostly focused on compact disc and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format used from the late 1970s through to the 1990s alongside vinyl, an album may be recorded in a recording studio, in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places. Recording may take a few hours to years to complete, usually in several takes with different parts recorded separately. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed live, the majority of studio recordings contain an abundance of editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at times while listening to the other parts using headphones. Album covers and liner notes are used, and sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, historically, the term album was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage the word was used for collections of pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, the LP record, or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. It was adopted by the industry as a standard format for the album. Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, the term album had been carried forward from the early nineteenth century when it had been used for collections of short pieces of music. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, as part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some commenters have declared that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album. Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as mini-albums or EPs, Albums such as Tubular Bells, Amarok, Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Yess Close to the Edge, include fewer than four tracks. There are no rules against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as albums. These are known as box sets, material is stored on an album in sections termed tracks, normally 11 or 12 tracks. A music track is a song or instrumental recording. The term is associated with popular music where separate tracks are known as album tracks. When vinyl records were the medium for audio recordings a track could be identified visually from the grooves
2.
A Perfect Circle
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A Perfect Circle is an American rock supergroup formed in 1999 by guitarist Billy Howerdel and Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan. The latest lineup features Puscifer bassist Matt McJunkins, former The Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, despite having a varied cast since inception, the stylistic content of the songs has remained consistent with Howerdel as composer, and Keenan penning the lyrics and melodies. A Perfect Circle has released three albums, their debut Mer de Noms in 2000, a follow up, Thirteenth Step in 2003, in late 2008, Keenan and Howerdel announced the band would reform, though the bands activity would ultimately be sporadic in the coming years. The band toured in 2011 and played live shows in 2013 to promote the release of a live album, A Perfect Circle Live, Featuring Stone and Echo. Work on new material has been alluded to by members since 2008, though progress was due to Keenans other commitments. The only new material released since the bands hiatus was the single By. In 2017, the signed a new record contract to release a fourth studio album through BMG Rights Management. A Perfect Circle was conceived by Billy Howerdel, a guitar technician for Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, Fishbone. Howerdel met singer Maynard James Keenan in 1992, when Tool was opening for Fishbone, Three years later, Keenan offered Howerdel, who was looking for lodging, a room in his North Hollywood home. This provided Howerdel the opportunity to play demos of his music for Keenan, pleased with what he heard, Keenan remarked, I can hear myself singing. Although he originally desired a female vocalist, Howerdel agreed that Keenan would be a good fit and they were then joined by bassist and violinist Paz Lenchantin, former Failure guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, and previous Primus drummer Tim Alexander. The band played their first show at LAs Viper Club Reception on August 15,1999, after playing shows in L. A. the band entered the studio to begin work on their first album. Alexander was soon replaced with drummer and member of The Vandals, Josh Freese. Alexanders performance can still be heard on the version of the song The Hollow. The bands debut album, Mer de Noms, was released on May 23,2000. The album is distinctive in that it is the highest ever debut for a band, selling over 188,000 copies in its first week. Howerdel had been working on some of the music, including tracks The Hollow and Breña, the band began touring soon after recording for the album was finished. As Keenan was well known through his band, he would often wear long wigs on his otherwise bald head when performing
3.
North Hollywood, Los Angeles
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North Hollywood is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of the city of Los Angeles. It is home to the NoHo Arts District and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, there is a municipal park and a recreation center. The neighborhood is an important transportation center, and it is also a place where many people have lived or worked. North Hollywood was established by the Lankershim Ranch Land and Water Company in 1887 and it was first named Toluca before being renamed Lankershim in 1896 and finally North Hollywood in 1927. It is not contiguous with Hollywood, being separated by parts of the San Fernando Valley. In 2008, the city estimated that the population had increased to 87,241, in 2000 the median age for residents was 30, considered an average age for city and county neighborhoods, the percentage of residents aged 19 to 34 was among the countys highest. The neighborhood was considered moderately diverse ethnically within Los Angeles, the breakdown was Latinos,57. 7%, whites, 27%, Asians,5. 7%, blacks,5. 6%, and others, 4%. Mexico and El Salvador were the most common places of birth for the 46. 4% of the residents who were born abroad—a high percentage for Los Angeles, the percentages of never-married men and never-married women were among the countys highest. The median yearly income in 2008 dollars was $42,791, considered average for the city. The percentages of households that earned $40,000 or less were high for the county, renters occupied 75. 4% of the housing stock, and house- or apartment-owners held 24. 6%. North Hollywood is bordered on the north by Sun Valley and on the northeast and east by Burbank, Toluca Lake borders North Hollywood on the southeast and south, and Studio City abuts it on the southwest. It is flanked by Valley Village and Valley Glen on the west, North Hollywood was once part of the vast landholdings of the Mission San Fernando Rey de España, which was confiscated by the government during the Mexican period of rule. A group of investors assembled as the San Fernando Farm Homestead Association purchased the half of the Rancho Ex-Mission San Fernando. The leading investor was Isaac Lankershim, a Northern California stockman and grain farmer, in 1873, Isaac Lankershims son and future son-in-law, James Boon Lankershim and Isaac Newton Van Nuys, moved to the San Ferndando Valley and took over management of the property. Van Nuys thought the property could profitably grow wheat using the dryland farming developed on the Great Plains. In time the Lankershim property, under its name, the Los Angeles Farming and Milling Company. Lankershim established a townsite which the residents named Toluca along the old road from Cahuenga Pass to San Fernando, the land boom of the 1880s went bust by the 1890s, but despite another brutal drought cycle in the late 1890s, the fruit and nut farmers remained solvent. The Toluca Fruit Growers Association was formed in 1894, the next year the Southern Pacific opened a branch line slanting northwest across the Valley to Chatsworth
4.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
5.
Alternative rock
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Alternative rock is a genre of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s and 2000s. In this instance, the word refers to the genres distinction from mainstream rock music. The terms original meaning was broader, referring to a generation of musicians unified by their debt to either the musical style or simply the independent. Ethos of punk rock, which in the late 1970s laid the groundwork for alternative music, Alternative rock is a broad umbrella term consisting of music that differs greatly in terms of its sound, its social context, and its regional roots. Most of these subgenres had achieved minor mainstream notice and a few bands representing them, such as Hüsker Dü, with the breakthrough of Nirvana and the popularity of the grunge and Britpop movements in the 1990s, alternative rock entered the musical mainstream and many alternative bands became successful. By the end of the decade, alternative rocks mainstream prominence declined due to a number of events that caused grunge and Britpop to fade, emo attracted attention in the larger alternative rock world, and the term was applied to a variety of artists, including multi-platinum acts. Post-punk revival artists such as Modest Mouse and The Killers had commercial success in the early, before the term alternative rock came into common usage around 1990, the sort of music to which it refers was known by a variety of terms. In 1979, Terry Tolkin used the term Alternative Music to describe the groups he was writing about, in 1979 Dallas radio station KZEW had a late night new wave show entitled Rock and Roll Alternative. College rock was used in the United States to describe the music during the 1980s due to its links to the radio circuit. In the United Kingdom, dozens of small do it yourself record labels emerged as a result of the punk subculture, according to the founder of one of these labels, Cherry Red, NME and Sounds magazines published charts based on small record stores called Alternative Charts. The first national chart based on distribution called the Indie Chart was published in January 1980, at the time, the term indie was used literally to describe independently distributed records. By 1985, indie had come to mean a particular genre, or group of subgenres, at first the term referred to intentionally non–mainstream rock acts that were not influenced by heavy metal ballads, rarefied new wave and high-energy dance anthems. The use of alternative gained further exposure due to the success of Lollapalooza, for which festival founder, in the late 1990s, the definition again became more specific. Defining music as alternative is often difficult because of two conflicting applications of the word, the name alternative rock essentially serves as an umbrella term for underground music that has emerged in the wake of punk rock since the mid-1980s. Alternative bands during the 1980s generally played in clubs, recorded for indie labels. Sounds range from the gloomy soundscapes of gothic rock to the guitars of indie pop to the dirty guitars of grunge to the 1960s/1970s revivalism of Britpop. This approach to lyrics developed as a reflection of the social and economic strains in the United States and United Kingdom of the 1980s, by 1984, a majority of groups signed to independent record labels mined from a variety of rock and particularly 1960s rock influences. This represented a break from the futuristic, hyper-rational post-punk years
6.
Alternative metal
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Alternative metal is a music genre that infuses heavy metal with influences from alternative rock and other genres not normally associated with metal. The term has been in use since the 1980s, although it came into prominence in the 1990s, other genres considered part of the alternative metal movement included rap metal and funk metal, both of which influenced another prominent subgenre, nu metal. Nu metal expands the alternative metal sound, combining its vocal stylings and downtuned riffs with elements of genres, such as hip hop, funk, hardcore. They also remarked that alternative metal was originally a style united by its nonconformist sensibility rather than any immediately classifiable sound, one of the main characteristics of alternative metal and its subgenres are heavily downtuned, mid-paced chug-like guitar riffs. However, funk metal bands use a more conventional riffing style influenced by 1980s thrash metal. Alternative metal features clean and melodic vocals, influenced by those of alternative rock, later bands frequently incorporated vocal styles that alternated between clean singing, growls and screaming. Examples include alternative metal bands associated with the nu metal movement, such as Korn and Deftones, jonathan Gold of the Los Angeles Times wrote in 1990 Just as rock has an alternative, wing-bands like the Replacements and Dinosaur Jr. -so does metal. Alternative metal is alternative music that rocks, and alternative metal these days can reach 10 times the audience of other alternative rock. Janes Addiction plays an intense brand of 70s-influenced arty metal, so does Soundgarden, in fact, the arty meanderings of Sab and the Zep themselves would be considered alternative metal. Houston Press has described the genre as being a compromise for people for whom Nirvana was not heavy enough but Metallica was too heavy. The first wave of metal bands emerged from many backgrounds, including hardcore punk, noise rock, Seattles grunge scene, stoner rock, sludge metal. These bands never formed a movement or scene, rather they were bound by their incorporation of traditional metal influences. Fudge Tunnels style of alternative metal included influences from both sludge metal and noise rock, other early bands in the genre also came from hardcore punk backgrounds. During the 1980s, alternative metal appealed mainly to rock fans. Several bands associated with the genre denied their status as metal bands, Helmet drummer John Stanier said We fell into the whole metal thing by accident, we always hated it when people mentioned metal in conjunction with us. Saby Reyes-Kulkarni of Pitchfork Media stated bands like Faith No More, Soundgarden, Primus, Helmet, the Rollins Band, and dozens more were initially marketed as quasi-metal acts. This was only possible in a climate where record labels, journalists, many established 1980s metal bands released albums in the 1990s that were described as alternative metal, including Anthrax, Metallica and Mötley Crüe. It resulted in a standardized sound among alternative metal bands, in contrast to the more eccentric
7.
Art rock
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Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that generally reflects a challenging or avant-garde approach to rock, or which makes use of modernist, experimental, or unconventional elements. Art rock aspires to elevate rock from teen entertainment to an artistic statement, influences may be drawn from genres such as experimental rock, avant-garde music, classical music, and jazz. The genres greatest level of popularity was in the early 1970s through British artists, art rock is most associated with a certain period of rock music, beginning in 1966–67 and ending with the arrival of punk in the mid 1970s. After, the genre would be infused within later popular music genres of the 1970s–90s, in the rock music of the 1970s, the art descriptor was generally understood to mean aggressively avant-garde or pretentiously progressive. Art rock is used synonymously with progressive rock. Historically, the term has been used to describe at least two related, but distinct, types of rock music, art rock emphasizes Romantic and autonomous traditions, in distinction to the aesthetic of the everyday and the disposable embodied by art pop. Common characteristics include album-oriented music divided into compositions rather than songs, with complicated and long instrumental sections. Its music was used within the context of concept records. Compared to progressive rock, art rock is more challenging, noisy and unconventional and less classically influenced, art rock can also to refer to either classically driven rock, or a progressive rock-folk fusion. S. Eliot than to Carl Perkins or Willie Dixon, the boundaries between art and pop music became increasingly blurred throughout the second half of the 20th century. The first usage of the art rock, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, was in 1968. As pop musics dominant format transitioned from singles to albums, many rock bands created works that aspired to make grand artistic statements, as it progressed in the late 1960s – in tandem with the development of progressive rock – art rock acquired notoriety alongside experimental rock. According to biographer Richard Williams, created a new concept, the producer as overall director of the creative process, Spector transformed rock music as a performing art to an art which could only exist in the recording studio, which paved the way for art rock. The Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson is also cited as one of the first examples of the music producer. Like Spector, Wilson was known as an eremitic studio obsessive who laboriously produced fantastical soundscapes through his mastery of recording technology. Biographer Peter Ames Carlin wrote that Wilson was the forerunner of a new kind of art-rock that would combine the transcendent possibilities of art with the accessibility of pop music. According to journalist Richard Goldstein, many musicians from California desired to be acknowledged as artists. They yearned for fame, as only needy people can, but they wanted to make art
8.
Progressive rock
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Progressive rock is a broad subgenre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States throughout the mid to late 1960s. Prog is based on fusions of styles, approaches and genres, Prog saw a high level of popularity in the early-to-mid 1970s, but faded soon after. Conventional wisdom holds that the rise of rock caused this. Music critics, who labelled the concepts as pretentious and the sounds as pompous and overblown. Early groups who exhibited progressive features are described as proto-prog. In 1967, progressive rock constituted a diversity of loosely associated style codes, the Canterbury scene, originating in the late 1960s, denoted a subset of prog bands who emphasised the use of wind instruments, complex chord changes and long improvisations. Rock in Opposition, from the late 1970s, was more avant-garde, in the 1980s, a new subgenre, neo-progressive rock, enjoyed some commercial success, although it was also accused of being derivative and lacking in innovation. Post-progressive draws upon newer developments in music and the avant-garde since the mid 1970s. The term progressive rock is synonymous with art rock, classical rock, historically, art rock has been used to describe at least two related, but distinct, types of rock music. Similarities between the two terms are that they describe a mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility. However, art rock is likely to have experimental or avant-garde influences. Prog was devised in the 1990s as a term, but later became a transferable adjective. Although a unidirectional English progressive style emerged in the late 1960s, by 1967, critics of the genre often limit its scope to a stereotype of long solos, overlong albums, fantasy lyrics, grandiose stage sets and costumes, and an obsessive dedication to technical skill. Author Kevin Holm-Hudson believes that rock is a style far more diverse than what is heard from its mainstream groups. They each do so largely unconsciously, academic John S. Cotner contests Macans view that progressive rock cannot exist without the continuous and overt assimilation of classical music into rock. Debate about the criteria and scope of the genre continues in the 2010s. In early references to the music, progressive was partly related to progressive politics, Cotner also says that progressive rock incorporates both formal and eclectic elements, It consists of a combination of factors – some of them intramusical, others extramusical or social. One way of conceptualising rock and roll in relation to music is that progressive music pushed the genre into greater complexity while retracing the roots of romantic
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