1.
U2
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U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin formed in 1976. The group consists of Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, initially rooted in post-punk, U2s sound grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music, yet has maintained an anthemic sound. Their lyrics, often embellished with spiritual imagery, focus on personal themes, popular for their live performances, the group has staged several ambitious and elaborate tours over their career. The band formed at Mount Temple Comprehensive School in 1976 when the members were teenagers with limited musical proficiency, within four years, they signed with Island Records and released their debut album Boy. Subsequent work such as their first UK number-one album War, by the mid-1980s, they had become renowned globally for their live act, highlighted by their performance at Live Aid in 1985. The groups fifth album, The Joshua Tree, made them international superstars and was their greatest critical and commercial success. Topping music charts around the world, it produced their only number-one singles in the US, With or Without You, facing a backlash and creative stagnation, U2 reinvented themselves in the 1990s through a new musical direction and public image. This experimentation continued through their album, Pop, and the PopMart Tour. U2 regained critical and commercial favour with the records All That You Cant Leave Behind and How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and their U2 360° Tour of 2009–2011 is the highest-attended and highest-grossing concert tour in history. The groups thirteenth album, Songs of Innocence, was released at no cost through the iTunes Store, U2 have released 13 studio albums and are one of the worlds best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 170 million records worldwide. They have won 22 Grammy Awards, more than any other band, Rolling Stone ranked U2 at number 22 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. The band formed in Dublin on 25 September 1976, Larry Mullen Jr. then a 14-year-old student at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, posted a note on the schools notice board in search of musicians for a new band—six people responded. Mullen later described it as The Larry Mullen Band for about ten minutes, then Bono walked in and blew any chance I had of being in charge. Martin, who had brought his guitar and amplifier to the first practice but could not play, did not remain with the group, the group settled on the name Feedback because it was one of the few technical terms they knew. Most of their material consisted of cover songs, which the band admitted was not their forte. Some of the earliest influences on the band were emerging punk rock acts, such as the Jam, the Clash, Buzzcocks, the popularity of punk rock convinced the group that musical proficiency was not a prerequisite to being successful. In April 1977, Feedback played their first gig for an audience at St. Fintans High School. Shortly after, the changed their name to The Hype
2.
Rick Rubin
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Frederick Jay Rick Rubin is a Jewish-American record producer and former co-president of Columbia Records. Along with Russell Simmons, Rubin is the co-founder of Def Jam Records, with the Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and Run–D. M. C. Rubin helped popularize hip hop music, in 2007, MTV called him the most important producer of the last 20 years, and the same year Rubin appeared on Times 100 Most Influential People in the World. Frederick Jay Rubin was born in Long Beach, New York and grew up in Lido Beach and his father, Michael was a shoe wholesaler and his mother, Linda, a housewife. While a student at Long Beach High School he befriended the schools audiovisual department director Steve Freeman who gave him a few lessons in playing and songwriting. Their biggest claim to fame was being thrown off the stage at CBGB after two songs for brawling with the heckling audience and these hecklers were friends of the band instructed to instigate a confrontation so as to get the show shut down and create a buzz. Somewhat anecdotally, this story was confirmed in an interview with music journalist Zane Lowe. Although he had no authority in New York City, Rubins father traveled from Nassau County, New York, during his senior year, Rubin founded Def Jam Records using the schools four-track recorder. He moved on to form Hose, influenced by San Franciscos Flipper, in 1982, a Hose track became Def Jams first release, a 45 rpm 7 vinyl single in a brown paper bag, and no label. The band broke up in 1984 as Rubins passion moved towards the NYC hip hop scene, having befriended Zulu Nations DJ Jazzy Jay, Rubin began to learn about hip hop production. By 1983, the two men produced Its Yours for rapper T La Rock, and released it on their independent label, Producer Arthur Baker helped to distribute the record worldwide on Bakers Streetwise Records in 1984. Jazzy Jay introduced Rubin to concert promoter/artist manager Russell Simmons in a club, Simmons and Rubin edged out Jazzy Jay and the official Def Jam record label was founded while Rubin was attending New York University in 1984. Their first record released was LL Cool Js I Need a Beat, Rubin went on to find more hip-hop acts outside The Bronx, Brooklyn and Harlem including rappers from Queens, Staten Island and Long Island, which eventually led to Def Jams signing of Public Enemy. Rubin was instrumental in pointing the members of the Beastie Boys away from their roots and into rap. 1985s Rock Hard/Partys Gettin Rough/Beastie Groove EP by the Beastie Boys came out on the success of Rubins production work with breakthrough act Run–D. M. C, which previous recordings were produced by Russell Simmons and Orange Krushs musician Larry Smith. His productions were characterized by occasionally fusing rap with heavy rock, Rubin tapped Adam Dubin and Ric Menello to co-direct the music videos for the Beastie Boys Fight for Your Right and No Sleep till Brooklyn, effectively launching the bands mainstream hip hop careers. It was the idea of Rick Rubins friend Sue Cummings, an editor at Spin magazine, to have Run–D. M. C. and this 1986 production is often credited with both introducing rap hard rock to mainstream ears and revitalizing Aerosmith. In 1986, he worked with Aerosmith again on demos for their forthcoming album, in the same year, Rubin began his long musical partnership with Slayer, producing Reign in Blood, considered a classic of the heavy metal genre
3.
Abbey Road Studios
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Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, St Johns Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, Abbey Road Studios is most notable as being the 1960s venue for innovative recording techniques adopted by the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Hollies, Badfinger and others. One of its earliest world-famous-artist clients was Paul Robeson, who recorded December 1931, towards the end of 2009, the studio came under threat of sale to property developers. However, the British Government protected the site, granting it English Heritage Grade II listed status in 2010, originally a nine-bedroom Georgian townhouse built in 1831 on the footpath leading to Kilburn Abbey, the building was later converted to flats where the most flamboyant resident was Maundy Gregory. In 1931, the Gramophone Company acquired the premises and converted it into studios, pathé filmed the opening of the studios when Sir Edward Elgar conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in recording sessions of his music. In 1934, inventor of stereo sound, Alan Blumlein, recorded Mozarts Jupiter Symphony which was conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham at the studios, the neighbouring house is also owned by the studio and used to house musicians. During the mid-20th century, the studio was used by leading British conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent. The Gramophone Company amalgamated with Columbia Graphophone Company to form EMI and it was under this name that in 1936 cellist Pablo Casals became the first to record Johann Sebastian Bachs Cello Suites No.1 &2 at the command of EMI head Fred Gaisberg. The recordings went on to spur a revolution among Bach aficionados, in 1958, Studio Two at Abbey Road became a centre for rock and roll music when Cliff Richard and the Drifters recorded Move It there, and later pop music material. The Beatles named their 1969 album Abbey Road, after the street where the studio is located, the studio was renamed Abbey Road Studios in 1970 after the Beatles album had made it famous. Iain Macmillan took the cover photograph outside the studios, with the result that the nearby zebra crossing has become a place of pilgrimage for Beatles fans. It has been a tradition for visitors to pay homage to the band by writing on the wall in front of the even though it is painted over every three months. December 2010, the crossing at Abbey Road was given a Grade II listed status. Pink Floyd recorded most of their late 1960s to mid-1970s albums here, the Shadows named their Live at Abbey Road album after the studio, with the cover spoofing the Beatles album. The chief mastering engineer at Abbey Road was Chris Vinyl Blair, in 1979, EMI commissioned the British jazz fusion band Morrissey-Mullen to record Britains first digitally recorded single record at Abbey Road Studios. From July 18 to September 11,1983, the public had an opportunity to see inside the legendary Studio Two where The Beatles made most of their records. While a new mixing console was being installed in the control room, the soundtrack to the video had a number of recordings that were not made commercially available until the release of The Beatles Anthology project over a decade later. The Red Hot Chili Peppers used a photograph of the walking across the zebra crossing naked on the front of The Abbey Road E. P. which was released in 1988
4.
Rock music
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It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by blues, rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of genres such as electric blues and folk. Musically, rock has centered on the guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature using a verse-chorus form, like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of subgenres, including new wave, post-punk. From the 1990s alternative rock began to rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures and this trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, Hammond organ and synthesizers. The basic rock instrumentation was adapted from the blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed a rock band or rock group, 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 are often derived from older musical modes, including the Dorian and Mixolydian, harmonies range from the common triad to parallel fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock, because of its complex history and 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. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources, including the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music and rhythm, as a result, it has been seen as articulating the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality, according to Simon Frith rock was something more than pop, something more than rock and roll. Rock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with the concept of art as artistic expression, original. The foundations of music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, debate surrounds which record should be considered the first rock and roll record. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
5.
Roots rock
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Roots rock is rock music that looks back to rocks origins in folk, blues and country music. Because roots music is used to mean folk and world musical forms. In the 1980s, roots rock enjoyed a revival in response to trends in rock, new wave. The same movement saw the beginning of the careers of Californian solo artists like Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt. The back to basics tendency would also be evident in the Rolling Stones Beggars Banquet and Exile on Main Street, the Beatles The White Album and Let It Be. The Doors Morrison Hotel and L. A. Woman, as well as the Grateful Deads Workingmans Dead Dylans lead was followed by The Byrds. The result of Parsons tenure in the Byrds was Sweetheart of the Rodeo, country rock was a particularly popular style in the California music scene of the late 1960s, and was adopted by bands including Hearts and Flowers, Poco and New Riders of the Purple Sage. Some folk-rockers followed the Byrds into the genre, among them the Beau Brummels, one of the few acts to successfully move from the country side towards rock were the bluegrass band The Dillards. Members of Ronstadts former backing band went on to form the Eagles, country rock began to fade in the late 1970s in the face of punk and new wave trends.38 Special, and Molly Hatchet. It has been seen as an American Midwest and Rust Belt counterpart to West Coast country rock and it can also be heard as an influence on artists as diverse as Billy Joel, Kid Rock and The Killers. As rock music in general, and blue collar and white working class themes in particular, lost influence with younger audiences, the term roots rock was coined during the mid-80s. Also part of trend and enjoying some mainstream success were Gun Club, Chris Isaak, John Mellencamp, BoDeans. In addition the alternative country movement, producing figures as Sheryl Crow, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams and Uncle Tupelo. The movement began to decline in popularity again in the 1990s but produced some bands like Son Volt, Wilco, after disbanding Dire Straits in 1995, frontman and lyricist Mark Knopfler has largely returned to a roots-rock sound across his nine albums since. List of Roots rock bands and musicians
6.
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
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