(Rap group, 1982–present) Although Public Enemy began trading pioneering hip hop in the late 1980s the resonance of their music and message of black empowerment resonated through the entire 1990s. Chuck D, Hank Shocklee, Flavor Flav and the informational Professor Griff delivered seminal third and fourth albums Fear Of A Black Planet (1990) and Apocalypse 91 … The ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1978–93, 2009–present) To the surprise of many, Johnny Rotten reinvented himself after The Sex Pistols as John Lydon. He enlisted Keith Levene (guitar, drums), Jah Wobble (b. John Wardle, bass) and a variety of other transient contributors. The punky thunder of PiL stormed the UK Top 10 and a good self-titled debut album followed ...
(Vocals, b. 1958) Tracy Marrow took his well-known name from pimp Iceberg Slim who wrote and published novels and poetry. Growing up wild in California, the release of a handful of singles on a variety of labels in the 1980s showed promise. Securing a solo deal, early albums like Rhyme Pays (1987) Power Power (1988) and the classic ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 1981–present) Starting life as avant-garde noise merchants, Thurston Moore (vocals, guitar), Kim Gordon (bass, vocals), Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals) and a variety of drummers, including Steve Shelley, have been at the centre of New York’s alternative music scene ever since, influencing indie rock immeasurably. Highlights include the striking art rock of ...
(Dance/vocal group, 1990–present) After releasing the infectious ‘Charly’, Prodigy mainman Liam Howlett secured acid-house credentials with a series of singles, recruiting dancers Keith Flint and Leeroy Thornhill and singer MC Maxim to distract live audiences from his knob-twiddling. Music For The Jilted Generation (1994) displayed wide-ranging styles fused on to the frenetic beats. The Fat Of The Land (1997) ...
African music dominates the world in the exported forms of blues, jazz, funk and their children, but the music within the continent is often overlooked. Africa still exports but it is also an importer, adapting salsa, rap and country to its own circumstances. Africa is a metaphorical and geographical crossroads, making the continent the home ...
When The Sugarhill Gang and Kurtis Blow made an impact on the mainstream pop charts in 1979, rap was immediately palmed off as a novelty. However, the style not only survived, but has proved to be so influential that, in varying degrees, pop, rock, heavy metal and reggae have all borrowed from hip hop ...
It used to be easy to talk about rap or hip hop, because essentially everybody knew where they stood: the artists made 12-inch singles that didn’t get played on the radio; they dressed in acres of brightly coloured leather, with people break-dancing and body-popping around them; and nobody came from farther west than New Jersey. Back in the day ...
It has been argued that all rap is political: a genuine black street statement, giving voice to those outside the musical or social establishments in a way that connects with a similarly dispossessed audience, and so its very existence is a political act. While many will be justified in thinking this is patently nonsense, it is, actually ...
For most of reggae’s life the terms ‘American reggae’ or ‘reggae in America’, have remained oxymorons. A number of possible reasons have been proposed, ranging from the plausible to the patently absurd, as to why reggae has never enjoyed the same success in the US that it found in the UK, in terms of proportionate record sales and ...
If the Stones ended the 1990s with a slightly dubious future ahead of them, the Noughties saw critics and the public alike ready and willing to embrace them again. With the career-spanning Forty Licks compilation in the shops, fans old and new were encouraged to rediscover the Stones’ past glories, and a 2002/03 worldwide tour saw them continue ...
By definition, a contemporary era defies summary. No one living in it has the conclusive perspective to discern the prevailing character of our times, even though we all know what we’re going through, and can hear what we hear. The reductive view is: Americans, after a burst stock-market bubble and terrorist attacks, live in uncertainty, ...
The Enlightenment was a natural, if late, consequence of the sixteenth-century Renaissance and Reformation. Also known as the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment advanced to be recognized in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and brought with it new, controversial beliefs that upended the absolutisms on which European society had long been based. Absolute monarchy, ...
Contemporary music whose ancestry lies in the Western classical tradition finds itself in a curious position. Nothing illustrates this better than the fact that we are not entirely sure what to call it. The label ‘classical’ seems anachronistic, especially when applied to composers who have challenged some of the fundamental assumptions of the classical tradition. ‘Concert music’ is similarly problematic ...
By the beginning of the eighteenth century, opera was established in some form in most major European centres. The basic types of serious and comic opera in both Italian and French traditions shared similarities, although the content and style of an operatic entertainment could vary according to whether it was intended to flatter a private patron, resound with ...
AUTHORITATIVE
An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...
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Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.
David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.