50s Rock and Roll

Fats Domino

The Fat Man

1949

Roy Brown

Good Rocking Tonight

1947

Bill Haley & His Comets

Crazy Man, Crazy

1953

Chuck Berry

Maybellene

1955

Little Richard

Tutti Frutti

1955

Elvis Presley

Hound Dog

1956

Bo Diddley

Who Do You Love?

1956

Elvis Presley

Thats all right Mama

1957

Chuck Berry

Johnny B. Goode

1958

Bill Haley
Rock around the Clock

1955

Jimmy Preston
Rock the Joint
1949

Buddy Holly
Peggy Sue
1958

Rock N Roll Information

http http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Preston
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Presely
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_roll
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Berry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Haley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_holly

Artists/Songs links

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJsQSb9RFo0i/Rock_and_roll.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5fsqYctXgM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEq62iQo0eU

60s - The British Invasion

Britain and America have always had several differences between themselves like traditions, fashion, sport and even music. In terms of music the two countries were hardly connected and they knew nothing about each other’s music and t he two countries were completely anonymous to each other, until the 1960s where a new musical movement took the American public by storm and it was called the British invasion.
Until the British invasion it was very difficult for British bands to make it big in America because of the different music societies except for three artists in particular who managed to break through the American barrier and make it big one of them was a solo artist called Dame Vera Lynn. Dame was the first ever solo artist to emerge from Britain and make it big in America in 1952 with a number 1 hit, then in 1962 a British band called the Tornados were second British act to make it big in America and were the first ever British group to so. Even though they were completely unknown in America they had managed to connect with the American public with their number one hits, but one group back in the 60s started the British invasion and changed the American music society forever and that group was called the Beatles.
Undoubtedly one of the greatest bands ever in history that started the pop music era is also the one band that started the British invasion in America. Surprisingly the Beatles got an outstanding welcome when they arrived in New York in 1964, fans were lining up waiting for the band to arrive and since they had a top hit in the American music charts beforehand the welcome they received was to be expected. In America there was a very popular show at the time of their arrival and it was called the Ed Sullivan show which was watched by Americans all the time at that point. The Beatles had made appearances on the Ed Sullivan show many times during the British invasion and played many of their songs including a song called Love me do which went to the top of the charts in May 1964 but the song that started the British invasion was a song called I want to hold your hand which got them into the charts at number 45 in January 1963 which kicked off the British invasion.
Aside from the Beatles other British bands made it into the America music charts like the animals and Petula Clark also had as much success as the Beatles did during the 60s. The British invasion still continues even today but it declined towards the 70s because I believe that with the rise and success of Jimi Hendrix that everyone forgot about the British invasion. During those few years we saw a great change in the music connection between America and Britain. Since then there have been other British groups that have broken the barrier into the American music society including bands like The Kinks and Oasis.

Links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CIIsTIEhl8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iim6s8Ea_bE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles

70s - Punk

Punk is one of the most recognizable music styles in the world, although it was founded in the 70s its roots and influences go back to the 50s and 60s with a very important music genre called rock and roll because the sound of punk is influenced from elements of rock and roll. Other elements of influence came from garage rock in the 60s which later became punk into the 70s.



For each music era they had their own fashion image and one of the first elements that were recognizable about punk was the fashion. Dating back to the 70s around the time of the punk era the fashion was seen as a rebellious type of fashion. Much like grunge which took its inspiration from the punk era the punk fashion included people with strange rebel like hair styles which consisted of:

· Traditional spiked up hair (also known as the liberty spikes)
· The Mohawk (which is the most recognized)
· Sometimes one colour or sometimes mixed colours

More of the fashion included leather jackets with lots of metal studs and little badges as well as some patches with band names on. Other points of interest in their fashion included a lot of piercings mostly on the nose, mouth and ears and clothes such as the glam metal leather jackets with patches that sometimes had band names or logos on different part of the jackets as well as including little badges. Ripped up jeans, leather jeans and bondage trousers were other popular clothes that were worn a lot by many punk fans in the 70s, bands like the Sex Pistols, The Ramones and The Clash were good examples of what the punk fashion represented in terms of being rebellious.
The punk movement began with bands such as The Ramones, The Sex Pistols (who were originally called the Strand) and the Clash which were some of the biggest punk bands to ever emerge and it began with a man called Malcolm McLaren. Malcolm first got onto the punk scene when he met the New York Dolls who were playing in New York in 1972 and became their manager until 1975 when the dolls broke up then moved back to his birthplace in England after failing to reinvent the Dolls when he tried to sell his clothing to the band and came back to the U.K where he started a new band called the Strand who later became known as the Sex Pistols.

The Sex Pistols were one of the most popular punk bands to emerge from the era and were considered a moving point in the English punk scene. The band first began under the name of the Strand but was later changed to the Sex Pistols, this particular band only lasted a few years but made a tremendous impact on the punk scene even though only releasing one album and four top singles. All four original members were Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock (who was replaced by Sid Vicious in early 1977) started the band in 1973 with Steve Jones on vocals but with Johnny Rotten later replacing him. The one studio album they released was called ‘Never Mind the Bollocks, here’s the Sex Pistols’ which was released in October in 1977 contained classic punk songs such as ‘no feelings, they are considered one of the most successful punk bands of all time.I chose punk for my 70s blog because even though I am not a big fan of punk it is one of my favourite genres to write about and I found it easier doing punk rather than other music styles that I didn’t know about. I also chose it because It is one of most successful music movements in the past 30 years and the music is still being played today through new sub - genres like Pop punk etc and it still continues to influence the likes of music fans alike.

80s - Glam metal

One of the biggest genres in the 1980s was glam metal/ hair metal, which first originated in the late 70s up until the early 90s (it was also called hair metal because of the big hair). It first originated on the music scene in America particularly in states such as New York, Pennsylvania, and San Diego in California but it was really famous on the Los Angeles music scene. The glam metal movement became a huge success for nearly 3 generations inspiring and influencing everyone alike from all around the globe including fans, musicians and bands.

The glam metal movement originates back to the late 1970s America where some of the first glam metal bands came from e.g. Kiss from New York and Motley Crue, Twisted Sister and Quiet Riot from California. It then influenced some European bands such as Def Leppard from Sheffield. The image of glam metal took its influence from the likes of David Bowie because I believe that his image played an important role in the development of the glam metal fashion, with the leather clothing and make up on his eyes and face. A good example of this fashion is on the music video for ‘Changes’ which is an example of where the glam metal image came from. Glam metal bands took the leather clothes with metal studs, the makeup worn on the face and added the big hair along with the shoes and created the glam metal image which was first shown by the band Kiss.


In the early stages of their career they wore the black and white make up along with the leather (spandex) and the big platform shoes. In the early 80s they dropped the makeup they used to wear but still continued to wear the leather and big shoes. Other bands who shared this look were Twisted Sister from California. The stage performances or shows of the glam metal era were different to other shows because they included a lot of effects such as smoke machines and fire. Unlike other shows these types of shows were fancy and seen to fit in well with the glam metal era.

The sound of the glam metal was different to other types of metal because it had drums which made a hard hitting boom noise to give it that cheesy electro 80s sound. Other sounds included choruses and hooks that were memorable, catchy and easy to sing along to. Other sounds included key changes towards the ending of a song whilst including some shredding guitar solos to give it the metal sound. The glam metal movement gained more popularity through the music charts with songs that and still are recognizable by anyone e.g. a glam band called Europe had a number one hit with a song called ‘The Final Countdown’. It was one of their biggest songs and was especially a well known song for its keyboard part (which I found really catchy) that was included in various parts in the song. It was one of their songs that were in the top 10 singles in the charts. Another well known glam metal song is by Twisted Sister with their song ‘we’re not gonna take it’ from their 1983 album ‘you can’t stop rock and roll’.

The glam metal era was a huge movement in the late 70s, 80s and early 90s but with the rise of grunge in the early 90s glam metal sadly started to decline. Bands ended splitting up and grunge started to take over and gaining popularity the glam metal era was completely gone by 1994. Years later many of the bands into the new century reformed to do reunion tours such as Motley crue, Twisted Sister and Poison who all reformed making new albums and playing all kinds of gigs worldwide.

90s - grunge

The 1990s music scene was a time where newer generations of music were originating from the older ones from the past 30 years and ones of those genres was Grunge. The grunge movement first originated back to the 1980s all the way into the mid 90s but really goes back to the 1970s for its influence from punk and heavy metal. Punk and heavy metal was a heavy influence on grunge and first originated in what is considered the birth place of grunge music Seattle,

Washington plus it formed around the time where glam metal was reaching its prime and by the early 90s the grunge movement was known everywhere in America and then worldwide. The grunge movement goes back to the mid 80s where some of the first bands formed out of Seattle with bands like Mother Love Bone and the Melvins and then came bigger bands like Pearl Jam, Sound Garden, Alice in Chains and Nirvana who boosted the genres success of modern rock music into the 21st century, Grunge has gone on to influence the likes of modern day bands such as Queens of the Stone Age, Seether, Theory of a Dead man and many more.

The image and fashion of the grunge movement was very different to other music fashions like thrash and glam metal because unlike other types of fashion in music it was seen as a plain simple kind of fashion, a very down to earth type look it included clothes such as checked lumberjack shirts which represented its down to earth look, unlike glam metal which was all the makeup, big hair and platform shoes the grunge image was just plain and simple and didn’t want to look too fancy.


Nirvana were one of the biggest grunge around from their debut in 1987 until 1994 the band started out with Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Aaron Burckhard (they went through many but he was the first) in 1987 who started to get popular around the Aberdeen music scene and in 1989 they released their debut album ‘Bleach’ which sold over £35,000 copies worldwide until it was topped by their second album ‘Nevermind’ which was their biggest album ever made and included the song ‘Smells like teen spirit’ which (in my opinion) was the biggest song they wrote because it was a huge hit when the album debuted and long after the band split up it is considered one of the greatest rock song ever wrote. Other big grunge bands included Pearl Jam, Sound garden and Alice in chains who like Nirvana got just as big and just as popular and really earned success the same way other bands had done. The grunge movement had influences of metal and punk but everything about it was different. Unlike glam metal grunge never had a fancy fashion sense; it never had any great visual or special effects for gigs it was all just plain and simple gigs and image but they had their own thing and other genres had there’s no I don’t think there was any commotion.

machine head

Machine head are a thrash metal band that were formed in 1992 by guitarist rob Flynn and bass player Adam deuce who hail from Oakland, California rob who had formed a band before who were called violence had split because of physical violence and so left to be with machine head, the band gave it that name because it was also the same name as a deep purple album, the band first started out playing at a warehouse with local punk rock bands and even recorded they own demo in a bedroom which got the attention of roadrunner records who got the band signed when they heard the demo. Machine head had completed their first debut album burn my eyes which contained songs that rob and Adam had mostly written even before the band had formed because rob still had mental problems with his former band and that affected machine head a lot but it changed when the first album sold 400,000 copies worldwide the album was a complete success and soon afterwards they started to tour the country opening up shows for slayer and soon afterwards again headlined the same venues on their own tour.

A few years later they worked on their second debut album called the more things change which was released on March 25th 1997 and made it in the 200 billboard chart at number 138, to celebrate the success of the album they toured on the first ozzfest but due to high drug use one member turned up late and was kicked out due to his incisive language and continued the tour without him. The other records machine head went on to release were as follows

2001 = supercharger

2003 = through the ashes of empires

2007 = the blackening

Machine heads style of music is thrash metal influenced from the likes of slayer and Metallica and have added their own style of thrash to their own songs since the blackening album was labelled the best metal album of 2007 comparing it to the likes of the Metallica album master of puppets, machine heads style of music is not only thrash metal but also are the pioneers of modern American wave of thrash and heavy metal influenced by the likes of trivium and bullet for my valentine, napalm death, Rancid and Deftones because the style and genre contained the likes of both punk and aggressive metal combined with a social anger of urban rap type sound with vocal harmonies influenced from Alice in chains because it was the album burn my eyes their first ever album that got the attention of metal core and punk type fans. In image wise they give the kind of image everyone who chooses to be in a metal band can look up to and say that they want to be just like them if they are successful machine head are just one of the modern day American bands that musicians can look up to for a style of music

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