178-603: Be-Bop Deluxe were an English rock band who achieved critical acclaim and moderate commercial success during the mid to late 1970s. Be-Bop Deluxe were founded in Wakefield , West Yorkshire , England, by singer, guitarist and principal songwriter Bill Nelson in 1972. The founding line-up consisted of Nelson, guitarist Ian Parkin , bassist and vocalist Robert Bryan, drummer Nicholas Chatterton-Dew, and keyboardist Richard Brown (who left in December of that year). They started off playing
356-457: A ballet . Both the ballet and Symphony were greeted with acclaim. Glass described Low and "Heroes" as "part of the new classics of our time". Bowie and Glass remained in contact until 2003 and discussed making a third symphony, which never came to fruition. After Bowie's death in 2016, Glass said the two had talked about adapting Lodger for the third symphony, adding "the idea has not totally disappeared". In January 2018, Glass announced
534-794: A "rebellion inspiration", Ian Astbury of the Cult and Robyn Hitchcock . John Lennon and U2 have also acknowledged the album's influence when making their records Double Fantasy (1980) and Achtung Baby (1991), respectively. Scott Walker used "Heroes" as "the reference album" when making the Walker Brothers ' Nite Flights (1978), according to engineer Steve Parker. Lodger ' s use of world music has been cited by Trynka as influencing Talking Heads and Spandau Ballet , while Spitz views it as influential on Talking Heads' Remain in Light (1980) and Paul Simon 's Graceland (1986). In
712-642: A Bowie album just as much as a Pop one. Although the Berlin Trilogy is said to comprise Low , "Heroes" , and Lodger , O'Leary argues the true Berlin Trilogy consists of The Idiot , Low , and "Heroes" , with Lust for Life a "supplement" and Lodger an "epilogue". The first album in the trilogy was Low , most of which was recorded at the Château, with the sessions completing at Hansa in Berlin. At this point, Bowie
890-509: A certain degree doesn't care if it's popular. — Bill Wyman in Vulture (2016) The sound of rock is traditionally centered on the amplified electric guitar, which emerged in its modern form in the 1950s with the popularity of rock and roll. It was also greatly influenced by the sounds of electric blues guitarists. The sound of an electric guitar in rock music is typically supported by an electric bass guitar, which pioneered jazz music in
1068-514: A fondness for a good beat, a meaningful lyric with some wit, and the theme of youth, which holds an "eternal attraction" so objective "that all youth music partakes of sociology and the field report ." Writing in Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s (1990), he said this sensibility is evident in the music of folk singer-songwriter Michelle Shocked , rapper LL Cool J , and synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys —"all kids working out their identities"—as much as it
1246-477: A foundation of simple syncopated rhythms in a 4 meter , with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies often originate from older musical modes such as the Dorian and Mixolydian , as well as major and minor modes. Harmonies range from the common triad to parallel perfect fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Since the late 1950s, and particularly from
1424-417: A four-guitarist, two-drummer band in the 1990s with his brother, but it never materialised; in 1992, Nelson released his own demos for this band as Blue Moons And Laughing Guitars on Virgin . In 1995, former Be-Bop Deluxe members Ian Parkin and Charlie Tumahai both died. In 2004, Sound on Sound magazine, whose website hosts Nelson's online shop and is named after Red Noise's Sound-on-Sound album put up
1602-609: A frequent addition to the established rock format of guitars, bass, and drums in subsequent progressive rock. Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy and science fiction. The Pretty Things ' SF Sorrow (1968), the Kinks' Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969), and the Who 's Tommy (1969) introduced
1780-612: A key feature of psychedelia. Psychedelic rock reached its apogee in the last years of the decade. 1967 saw the Beatles release their definitive psychedelic statement in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , including the controversial track " Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds ", the Rolling Stones responded later that year with Their Satanic Majesties Request , and Pink Floyd debuted with The Piper at
1958-568: A loud amplified sound, often centered on the electric guitar, based on the Chicago blues , particularly after the tour of Britain by Muddy Waters in 1958, which prompted Cyril Davies and guitarist Alexis Korner to form the band Blues Incorporated . The band involved and inspired many of the figures of the subsequent British blues boom, including members of the Rolling Stones and Cream , combining blues standards and forms with rock instrumentation and emphasis. The other key focus for British blues
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#17328595501982136-572: A mainstream audience with hits including " Blowin' in the Wind " (1963) and " Masters of War " (1963), which brought " protest songs " to a wider public, but, although beginning to influence each other, rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with mutually exclusive audiences. Early attempts to combine elements of folk and rock included the Animals' " House of the Rising Sun " (1964), which
2314-485: A major element of progressive rock. From about 1967 bands like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience had moved away from purely blues-based music into psychedelia . By the 1970s, blues rock had become heavier and more riff-based, exemplified by the work of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple , and the lines between blues rock and hard rock "were barely visible", as bands began recording rock-style albums. The genre
2492-429: A major influence on subsequent electronic rock . With the advent of punk rock and technological changes in the late 1970s, progressive rock was increasingly dismissed as pretentious and overblown. Many bands broke up, but some, including Genesis, ELP, Yes, and Pink Floyd, regularly scored top ten albums with successful accompanying worldwide tours. Some bands which emerged in the aftermath of punk, such as Siouxsie and
2670-404: A major influence on the post-punk genre, inspiring artists like Joy Division and Gary Numan , elements of Lodger have been identified as a precursor to an increased interest in world music . The American composer and pianist Philip Glass adapted the three albums into classical symphonies. They were remastered in 2017 as part of the A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982) box set . I
2848-410: A more basic form of rock and roll that incorporated its original influences, particularly blues, country and folk music, leading to the creation of country rock and Southern rock. In 1966 Bob Dylan went to Nashville to record the album Blonde on Blonde . This, and subsequent more clearly country-influenced albums, such as Nashville Skyline , have been seen as creating the genre of country folk ,
3026-481: A multibillion-dollar industry and doubling its market while, as Christgau noted, suffering a significant "loss of cultural prestige". "Maybe the Bee Gees became more popular than the Beatles, but they were never more popular than Jesus ", he said. "Insofar as the music retained any mythic power, the myth was self-referential – there were lots of songs about the rock and roll life but very few about how rock could change
3204-570: A national phenomenon. It is often argued that the surf music craze and the careers of almost all surf acts was effectively ended by the arrival of the British Invasion from 1964, because most surf music hits were recorded and released between 1960 and 1965. By the end of 1962, what would become the British rock scene had started with beat groups like the Beatles , Gerry & the Pacemakers and
3382-456: A preacher, prosecutions of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry and the breaking of the payola scandal (which implicated major figures, including Alan Freed, in bribery and corruption in promoting individual acts or songs), gave a sense that the rock and roll era established at that point had come to an end. Rock quickly spread out from its origins in the US, associated with the rapid Americanization that
3560-444: A prog rock influence and while ranking among the most commercially successful acts of the 1970s, heralding the era of pomp or arena rock , which would last until the costs of complex shows (often with theatrical staging and special effects), would be replaced by more economical rock festivals as major live venues in the 1990s. The instrumental strand of the genre resulted in albums like Mike Oldfield 's Tubular Bells (1973),
3738-773: A proposed soundtrack album for The Man Who Fell to Earth , Bowie decided to move back to Europe. He began rehearsals for the Isolar tour to promote Station to Station in January 1976; the tour began on 2 February. While the tour was critically acclaimed, Bowie became a controversial figure during the tour. In his persona as the Thin White Duke , he made statements about Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany that some interpreted as expressing sympathy for or even promoting fascism . He later blamed his erratic behaviour during this period on his addictions and precarious mental state, saying, "I
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#17328595501983916-446: A rigidly delineated musical definition." In the opinion of music journalist Robert Christgau , "the best rock jolts folk-art virtues—directness, utility, natural audience—into the present with shots of modern technology and modernist dissociation ". Rock and roll was conceived as an outlet for adolescent yearnings ... To make rock and roll is also an ideal way to explore intersections of sex, love, violence, and fun, to broadcast
4094-695: A route pursued by a number of largely acoustic folk musicians. Other acts that followed the back-to-basics trend were the Canadian group the Band and the California-based Creedence Clearwater Revival , both of which mixed basic rock and roll with folk, country and blues, to be among the most successful and influential bands of the late 1960s. The same movement saw the beginning of the recording careers of Californian solo artists like Ry Cooder , Bonnie Raitt and Lowell George , and influenced
4272-478: A slogan one only began to hear in 1972 or so, mobilized all those eager to believe that idealism had become passe, and once they were mobilized, it had. In popular music, embracing the '70s meant both an elitist withdrawal from the messy concert and counterculture scene and a profiteering pursuit of the lowest common denominator in FM radio and album rock . Rock saw greater commodification during this decade, turning into
4450-407: A style that drew directly from the genres of blues , rhythm and blues , and country music . Rock also drew strongly from genres such as electric blues and folk , and incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock is centered on the electric guitar , usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar , drums , and one or more singers. Usually, rock
4628-524: A third project with Pop in 1978, Lust for Life would be the pair's last official collaboration until the mid-1980s. As the second release of the Berlin Trilogy, "Heroes" (1977) expands on the material found on Low . Like its predecessor, it delves into art rock and experimental rock, while continuing Bowie's work in the electronic and ambient genres. The songs emphasise tone and atmosphere rather than guitar-based rock. However, they have been described as more positive in both tone and atmosphere than
4806-460: A variety of directions, including Dylan and the Byrds, who began to develop country rock . However, the hybridization of folk and rock has been seen as having a major influence on the development of rock music, bringing in elements of psychedelia, and helping to develop the ideas of the singer-songwriter, the protest song, and concepts of "authenticity". Psychedelic music's LSD -inspired vibe began in
4984-522: A variety of sources such as the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music , and rhythm and blues . Christgau characterizes rock lyrics as a "cool medium" with simple diction and repeated refrains, and asserts that rock's primary "function" "pertains to music, or, more generally, noise ." The predominance of white, male, and often middle class musicians in rock music has often been noted, and rock has been seen as an appropriation of Black musical forms for
5162-501: A young, white and largely male audience. As a result, it has also been seen to articulate 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 and aggression". Since the term "rock" started being used in preference to "rock and roll" from the late-1960s, it has usually been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics, but from which it
5340-502: Is credited as co-author on four of the ten songs, leading biographer Thomas Jerome Seabrook to call this album the "truer" collaboration. Eno acted as "assistant director" for Bowie, giving feedback to the musicians and suggesting new and unusual ways to approach the tracks. One way was using Eno's Oblique Strategies cards. According to O'Leary, these cards were "part-fortune cookie, part- Monopoly 'Chance' cards", intended to spark creative ideas. Bowie improvised lyrics while standing at
5518-536: Is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music. Four years later, Bill Haley 's " Rock Around the Clock " (1954) became the first rock and roll song to top Billboard magazine's main sales and airplay charts, and opened the door worldwide for this new wave of popular culture. Other artists with early rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry , Bo Diddley , Fats Domino , Little Richard , Jerry Lee Lewis , and Gene Vincent . Soon rock and roll
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5696-464: Is generally agreed that garage rock peaked both commercially and artistically around 1966. By 1968 the style largely disappeared from the national charts and at the local level as amateur musicians faced college, work or the draft . New styles had evolved to replace garage rock. Although the first impact of the British Invasion on American popular music was through beat and R&B based acts,
5874-600: Is in the music of Chuck Berry , the Ramones , and the Replacements . The foundations of rock music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to much of the rest of the world. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various black musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music , with country and western . Debate surrounds
6052-426: Is now recognised as one of Bowie's greatest and most innovative records. The Quietus argues that Bowie created the blueprint "reinvention" album with Low , a record from an artist at the peak of their popularity that confounded the listening public's expectations. Furthermore, it "challeng[ed] the idea of what an album could be, in its structure and in its ingredients", a feat that would not be achieved again until
6230-411: Is often distanced by an emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and a focus on serious and progressive themes as part of an ideology of authenticity that is frequently combined with an awareness of the genre's history and development. According to Simon Frith , rock was "something more than pop, something more than rock and roll" and "[r]ock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with
6408-468: Is slang for a guitar, "Futurama" is a particular make of guitar, while " Sunburst Finish " refers to a style of finishing for the instrument. The title track of the fourth album, Modern Music , was a ten-minute suite of songs inspired by the experience of the band's touring the US. This was followed by the 1977 live album, Live! In The Air Age , recorded on the subsequent UK tour promoting Modern Music although no songs from that studio album appeared on
6586-453: Is song-based music with a 4 time signature using a verse–chorus form , but the genre has become extremely diverse. Like pop music , lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political. Rock was the most popular genre of music in the U.S. and much of the Western world from the 1950s to the 2010s. Rock musicians in
6764-399: Is termed as a rock band or a rock group. Furthermore, it typically consists of between three (the power trio ) and five members. Classically, a rock band takes the form of a quartet whose members cover one or more roles, including vocalist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass guitarist, drummer, and often keyboard player or another instrumentalist. Rock music is traditionally built on
6942-544: Is the Band." Berlin Trilogy The Berlin Trilogy consists of three studio albums by English musician David Bowie : Low , "Heroes" (both 1977) and Lodger (1979). Bowie recorded the albums in collaboration with English musician Brian Eno and American producer Tony Visconti . The trilogy originated following Bowie's move from Los Angeles to Europe with American singer Iggy Pop to rid themselves of worsening drug addiction. Influences included
7120-528: The Billboard Hot 100 . The British Invasion greatly influenced garage bands, providing them with a national audience, leading many (often surf or hot rod groups) to adopt a British influence, and encouraging many more groups to form. Thousands of garage bands were extant in the United States and Canada during the era and hundreds produced regional hits. Despite scores of bands being signed to major or large regional labels, most were commercial failures. It
7298-519: The American folk music revival had grown to a major movement, using traditional music and new compositions in a traditional style, usually on acoustic instruments. In America the genre was pioneered by figures such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and often identified with progressive or labor politics . In the early sixties figures such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan had come to the fore in this movement as singer-songwriters. Dylan had begun to reach
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7476-554: The Brücke Museum , becoming in Sandford's words: "a prolific producer and collector of contemporary art ... Not only did he become a well-known patron of expressionist art , locked in Clos des Mésanges he began an intensive self-improvement course in classical music and literature , and started work on an autobiography." Eno played a greater role on "Heroes" than he had on Low . He
7654-422: The garage rock / post-punk revival in the 2000s. Since the 2010s, rock has lost its position as the pre-eminent popular music genre in world culture, but remains commercially successful. The increased influence of hip-hop and electronic dance music can be seen in rock music, notably in the techno-pop scene of the early 2010s and the pop-punk-hip-hop revival of the 2020s. Rock has also embodied and served as
7832-417: The protest song , rock music has been associated with political activism , as well as changes in social attitudes to race, sex, and drug use, and is often seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult consumerism and conformity . At the same time, it has been commercially highly successful, leading to accusations of selling out . A good definition of rock, in fact, is that it's popular music that to
8010-454: The 1950s saw the growth in popularity of the electric guitar, and the development of a specifically rock and roll style of playing through such exponents as Chuck Berry, Link Wray , and Scotty Moore . The use of distortion , pioneered by Western swing guitarists such as Junior Barnard and Eldon Shamblin was popularized by Chuck Berry in the mid-1950s. The use of power chords , pioneered by Francisco Tárrega and Heitor Villa-Lobos in
8188-585: The 1990s, Britpop bands Blur and Oasis would use aspects of Lodger tracks in their own recordings, including the former's 1997 single " M.O.R. " and the latter's 1996 single " Don't Look Back in Anger ". In 1992, the American composer and pianist Philip Glass composed a classical suite based on Low , titled "Low" Symphony . It was his first symphony and consisted of three movements, each based on three Low tracks. The Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra recorded
8366-461: The 19th century and later on by Willie Johnson and Pat Hare in the early 1950s, was popularized by Link Wray in the late 1950s. Commentators have traditionally perceived a decline of rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By 1959, the death of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in a plane crash, the departure of Elvis for the army, the retirement of Little Richard to become
8544-524: The 8-CD compilation The Practice of Everyday Life which covered 40 years of recordings, including the Be-Bop Deluxe period, released expanded, multiple CD versions of the Be-Bop Deluxe albums and the Bill Nelson's Red Noise album, having acquired the rights from EMI. In the fall of 2024, it was reported in forums on drumforum.com and billnelson.com that Simon Fox had died in mid-September of that year at
8722-472: The Banshees , Ultravox , and Simple Minds , showed the influence of progressive rock, as well as their more usually recognized punk influences. In the late 1960s, jazz-rock emerged as a distinct subgenre out of the blues-rock, psychedelic, and progressive rock scenes, mixing the power of rock with the musical complexity and improvisational elements of jazz. AllMusic states that the term jazz-rock "may refer to
8900-609: The Beatles, demonstrating "to the rock generation in general that an album could be a major standalone statement without hit singles", such as on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963). Folk rock particularly took off in California, where it led acts like the Mamas & the Papas and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to move to electric instrumentation, and in New York, where it spawned performers including
9078-412: The Berlin Trilogy, which he considered forerunners in the development of industrial rock , synth-pop and "ambient trance". In Stylus Magazine , Alfred Soto also noted the influence of the trilogy, alongside Bowie's earlier Diamond Dogs (1974), on gothic rock , stating that the "sepulchral baritone" of the records "rumbled beneath the desiccated landscapes created by The Mission U.K. , Fields of
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#17328595501989256-460: The Berlin Trilogy. The Berlin Trilogy initially received a mixed reception from music critics. Low divided critics; some, including Rolling Stone and NME were negative, while others, including Billboard and Sounds magazine, were positive. Initially, "Heroes" was the most well-received work of the trilogy, with NME and Melody Maker naming it their Album of the Year. Lodger
9434-596: The Byrds ' shift from folk to folk rock from 1965. The psychedelic lifestyle, which revolved around hallucinogenic drugs, had already developed in San Francisco and particularly prominent products of the scene were Big Brother and the Holding Company , the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane . The Jimi Hendrix Experience 's lead guitarist, Jimi Hendrix did extended distorted, feedback-filled jams which became
9612-431: The Byrds adopted rock instrumentation, including drums and 12-string Rickenbacker guitars, which became a major element in the sound of the genre. Later that year Dylan adopted electric instruments, much to the outrage of many folk purists, with his " Like a Rolling Stone " becoming a US hit single. According to Ritchie Unterberger , Dylan (even before his adoption of electric instruments) influenced rock musicians like
9790-560: The Dark , Magazine , Gang of Four and Wire . Robert Smith of the Cure and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails have also acknowledged Low ' s influence on their respective records Seventeen Seconds (1980) and The Downward Spiral (1994). Artists inspired by "Heroes" include Andy McCluskey of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, who referred to the "unconscious influence" of Bowie on his singing style, Vince Clarke , who called it
9968-578: The Dominos , followed by an extensive solo career that helped bring blues rock into the mainstream. Green, along with the Bluesbreaker's rhythm section Mick Fleetwood and John McVie , formed Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac , who enjoyed some of the greatest commercial success in the genre. In the late 1960s Jeff Beck , also an alumnus of the Yardbirds, moved blues rock in the direction of heavy rock with his band,
10146-499: The Gates of Dawn . Key recordings included Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and the Doors ' self-titled debut album . These trends peaked in the 1969 Woodstock festival , which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts. Sgt. Pepper was later regarded as the greatest album of all time and a starting point for the album era , during which rock music transitioned from
10324-542: The German krautrock scene and the recent ambient releases of Eno. Both Low and "Heroes" experiment with electronic and ambient music, with conventional tracks on side one and instrumental pieces on side two. Lodger features a wide variety of musical styles with more accessible songs throughout; both sides are split thematically by the lyrics. King Crimson guitarists Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew contributed lead guitar to "Heroes" and Lodger , respectively. During
10502-464: The Jeff Beck Group . The last Yardbirds guitarist was Jimmy Page , who went on to form The New Yardbirds which rapidly became Led Zeppelin . Many of the songs on their first three albums, and occasionally later in their careers, were expansions on traditional blues songs. In America, blues rock had been pioneered in the early 1960s by guitarist Lonnie Mack , but the genre began to take off in
10680-498: The Joint " (1949), also covered by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1952; and " Rocket 88 " by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (in fact, Ike Turner and his band the Kings of Rhythm ), recorded by Sam Phillips for Chess Records in 1951. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music (then termed " race music ") for a multi-racial audience, and
10858-499: The Lovin' Spoonful and Simon and Garfunkel , with the latter's acoustic " The Sounds of Silence " (1965) being remixed with rock instruments to be the first of many hits. These acts directly influenced British performers like Donovan and Fairport Convention . In 1969 Fairport Convention abandoned their mixture of American covers and Dylan-influenced songs to play traditional English folk music on electric instruments. This British folk-rock
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#173285955019811036-478: The Nephilim , Sisters of Mercy and, most famously, Bauhaus ." Both Low and The Idiot have been considered major influences on the post-punk genre. Stylus Magazine regards Low as a crucial influence on the post-rock genre, which would come to prominence among underground musicians nearly two decades after the album's release. Commentators have cited Joy Division , an English post-punk band formed in
11214-552: The Pops . After releasing "Heroes" , Bowie spent much of 1978 on the Isolar ;II world tour , bringing the music of the first two Berlin Trilogy albums to almost a million people during 70 concerts in 12 countries. By now he had broken his drug addiction; biographer David Buckley writes Isolar II was "Bowie's first tour for five years in which he had probably not anaesthetised himself with copious quantities of cocaine before taking
11392-476: The Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds , were much more directly influenced by rhythm and blues and later blues music. Soon these groups were composing their own material, combining US forms of music and infusing it with a high energy beat. Beat bands tended towards "bouncy, irresistible melodies", while early British blues acts tended towards less sexually innocent, more aggressive songs, often adopting an anti-establishment stance. There was, however, particularly in
11570-573: The Searchers from Liverpool and Freddie and the Dreamers , Herman's Hermits and the Hollies from Manchester. They drew on a wide range of American influences including 1950s rock and roll, soul, rhythm and blues, and surf music, initially reinterpreting standard American tunes and playing for dancers. Bands like the Animals from Newcastle and Them from Belfast , and particularly those from London like
11748-650: The Seeds ) to near-studio musician quality (including the Knickerbockers , the Remains , and the Fifth Estate ). There were also regional variations in many parts of the country with flourishing scenes particularly in California and Texas. The Pacific Northwest states of Washington and Oregon had perhaps the most defined regional sound. The style had been evolving from regional scenes as early as 1958. "Tall Cool One" (1959) by
11926-676: The US was becoming dominated by lightweight pop and ballads, British rock groups at clubs and local dances were developing a style more strongly influenced by blues-rock pioneers, and were starting to play with an intensity and drive seldom found in white American acts; this influence would go on to shape the future of rock music through the British Invasion . The first four years of the 1960s has traditionally been seen as an era of hiatus for rock and roll. More recently some authors have emphasised important innovations and trends in this period without which future developments would not have been possible. While early rock and roll, particularly through
12104-604: The USSR and South Africa from 1955 to 1957, influencing the globalisation of rock. Johnny O'Keefe 's 1958 record " Wild One " was one of the earliest Australian rock and roll hits. By the late 1950s, as well as in the American-influenced Western world, rock was popular in communist states such as Yugoslavia, and the USSR, as well as in regions such as South America. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, American blues music and blues rock artists, who had been surpassed by
12282-722: The Wailers and " Louie Louie " by the Kingsmen (1963) are mainstream examples of the genre in its formative stages. By 1963, garage band singles were creeping into the national charts in greater numbers, including Paul Revere and the Raiders (Boise), the Trashmen (Minneapolis) and the Rivieras (South Bend, Indiana). Other influential garage bands, such as the Sonics (Tacoma, Washington), never reached
12460-602: The West Yorkshire pub scene, with one regular venue being the Staging Post in Whinmoor , Leeds . They never played bebop music, but instead came out of the blues -based British rock scene of the late 1960s. At first they were compared to the more successful David Bowie , but Nelson never tried to copy Bowie, and appears to have disliked comparisons or being pigeon-holed. After signing to EMI 's Harvest Records subsidiary,
12638-609: The acts Tangerine Dream , Neu! , Kraftwerk and Harmonia . While Eno had worked with Harmonia both in-studio and on stage, Bowie exhibited a krautrock influence on Station to Station , particularly its title track . After the meetup, the two agreed to stay in touch. After moving to Switzerland, Bowie booked studio time later in the summer at the Château d'Hérouville in Hérouville , France, where he made plans to write and produce an album for his old friend, singer Iggy Pop . Pop, who
12816-527: The advent of rockabilly, saw the greatest commercial success for male and white performers, in this era, the genre was dominated by black and female artists. Rock and roll had not disappeared entirely from music at the end of the 1950s and some of its energy can be seen in the various dance crazes of the early 1960s, started by Chubby Checker 's record " The Twist " (1960). Some music historians have also pointed to important and innovative technical developments that built on rock and roll in this period, including
12994-610: The age of 75. Be-Bop Deluxe were initially a glam rock band that incorporated elements of progressive rock , blues and folk rock into their musical style. After the band received unfavourable comparisons to the music of David Bowie , leader Bill Nelson initiated a shift in the band's style to emphasise a more experimental sound. This new sound has been classified as art rock , heavy metal , progressive rock, pop rock and progressive pop . With their final album, Drastic Plastic , Be-Bop Deluxe again expanded their style to include influences new wave music . Science fiction imagery
13172-460: The album as unrepresentative of his repertoire and as evidence of his being "co-opted" by Bowie for his own ends. Bowie later admitted: "Poor [Iggy], in a way, became a guinea pig for what I wanted to do with sound. I didn't have the material at the time, and I didn't feel like writing at all. I felt much more like laying back and getting behind someone else's work, so that album was opportune, creatively." Biographer Chris O'Leary considers The Idiot
13350-453: The album is seen as an extension or refinement of its predecessor's achievements rather than a "definitive new work". It has, nonetheless, been regarded as one of Bowie's best and most influential works. Although regarded as the weakest of the Berlin Trilogy on release, Lodger has come to be considered one of Bowie's most underrated works. Bowie would later describe the trilogy's music as his "DNA". Consequence of Sound characterised
13528-595: The band King Crimson , who Bowie recruited at Eno's suggestion. On his arrival at the studio, Fripp sat down and recorded lead guitar parts for tracks he had never heard before. He received little guidance from Bowie, who had yet to write lyrics or melodies. Fripp completed his guitar parts in three days. Bowie was in a much healthier state of mind during these sessions than during those for Low . He and Visconti frequently travelled around Berlin. While there, Bowie began exploring other art forms and visiting galleries in Geneva and
13706-435: The band's albums, single edits and B-sides as part of this release with the exception of the pre- Axe Victim , independently released Smile single "Teenage Archangel" / "Jets At Dawn", as part of this set. Although Nelson did not supervise the release, he gave final approval on the remasters and agreed to provide a disc of rarities to help sell the set, if EMI paid him royalties on the release. The two Smile tracks can be found on
13884-575: The biggest selling rock band of all time and they were followed into the US charts by numerous British bands. During the next two years British acts dominated their own and the US charts with Peter and Gordon , the Animals, Manfred Mann , Petula Clark , Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders , Herman's Hermits, the Rolling Stones, the Troggs , and Donovan all having one or more number one singles. Other major acts that were part of
14062-405: The chart. Their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964, drawing an estimated 73 million viewers (at the time a record for an American television program) is considered a milestone in American pop culture. During the week of 4 April 1964, the Beatles held 12 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the entire top five. The Beatles went on to become
14240-587: The chords from Bowie's 1972 composition " All the Young Dudes " played backwards, and "Red Money" took backing tracks from The Idiot track "Sister Midnight". Unlike "Heroes" , most of Lodger ' s lyrics were written late; they were unknown during the Mountain sessions. The lyrics have been interpreted as covering two major themes—travel on side one and critiques of Western civilisation on side two. Biographer Nicholas Pegg writes of side one's theme of travel, that
14418-636: The compilation Postcards From the Future... Introducing Be-Bop Deluxe (2004) and Nelson's 40-year career retrospective, eight CD set, The Practice Of Everyday Life (2011). Despite Be-Bop Deluxe's commercial success, Bill Nelson stated that he had never received royalties for the earlier CD release of his back catalog on EMI until the 2011 CD reissue/remaster of his back catalogue. Between 2018 and 2022, Cherry Red Records ' subsidiary Esoteric Recordings , who had been rolling out re-releases of Nelson's back catalogue for many of his releases between 1981 and 2002 with
14596-479: The completion of a symphony based on Lodger . The work is Glass's 12th Symphony ; it premiered in Los Angeles in January 2019. Like Glass's other adaptations, the "Lodger" Symphony is separated into seven movements, each named after tracks on Lodger . The symphony marked the completion of his trilogy of works based on the Berlin Trilogy. The Berlin Trilogy, along with the live album Stage and Scary Monsters ,
14774-424: The delights and limitations of the regional , and to deal with the depredations and benefits of mass culture itself. — Robert Christgau in Christgau's Record Guide (1981) Unlike many earlier styles of popular music, rock lyrics have dealt with a wide range of themes, including romantic love, sex, rebellion against " The Establishment ", social concerns, and life styles. These themes were inherited from
14952-443: The development of psychedelic rock , influenced by the countercultural psychedelic and hippie scene . New genres that emerged included progressive rock , which extended artistic elements, heavy metal , which emphasized an aggressive thick sound, and glam rock , which highlighted showmanship and visual style. In the second half of the 1970s, punk rock reacted by producing stripped-down, energetic social and political critiques. Punk
15130-451: The early 1970s among existing blues-rock and psychedelic bands, as well as newly formed acts. The vibrant Canterbury scene saw acts following Soft Machine from psychedelia, through jazz influences, toward more expansive hard rock, including Caravan , Hatfield and the North , Gong , and National Health . The French group Magma around drummer Christian Vander almost single-handedly created
15308-455: The early 1970s, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981): The decade is, of course, an arbitrary schema itself—time doesn't just execute a neat turn toward the future every ten years. But like a lot of artificial concepts—money, say—the category does take on a reality of its own once people figure out how to put it to work. "The '60s are over,"
15486-558: The early days) and hard guitar rock. "Ships in the Night", taken from the band's third album Sunburst Finish , was their most successful single in both the UK and the US. The single features an alto saxophone solo by Ian Nelson . The album was notably the first to be produced by EMI employee John Leckie , who had hitherto worked for the company as a recording engineer, in which capacity he had served on Axe Victim , which he also in effect produced. It
15664-457: The early stages, considerable musical crossover between the two tendencies. By 1963, led by the Beatles, beat groups had begun to achieve national success in Britain, soon to be followed into the charts by the more rhythm and blues focused acts. " I Want to Hold Your Hand " was the Beatles' first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 , spending seven weeks at the top and a total of 15 weeks on
15842-510: The electronic treatment of sound by such innovators as Joe Meek , and the elaborate production methods of the Wall of Sound pursued by Phil Spector . The instrumental rock and roll of performers such as Duane Eddy , Link Wray and the Ventures was further developed by Dick Dale , who added distinctive "wet" reverb , rapid alternate picking, and Middle Eastern and Mexican influences. He produced
16020-524: The engineer to imitate Low ' s drum sound; they could not. Like Morris, many musicians, producers and engineers tried to imitate Low ' s drum sound. Visconti refused to explain how he did it, instead asking them how they thought it had been done. Commentators would later recognise an array of artists who were influenced by Low , including the Human League , Cabaret Voltaire , Arcade Fire , Gary Numan, Devo , Ultravox , Orchestral Manoeuvres in
16198-568: The example set by the Beatles ' 1965 LP Rubber Soul in particular, other British rock acts released rock albums intended as artistic statements in 1966, including the Rolling Stones ' Aftermath , the Beatles' own Revolver , and the Who 's A Quick One , as well as American acts in the Beach Boys ( Pet Sounds ) and Bob Dylan ( Blonde on Blonde ). Garage rock was a raw form of rock music, particularly prevalent in North America in
16376-516: The fabric of time". Visconti rigged the machine to Davis's snare drum and fed the results through his headphones, so he could hear the resultant sound. Bowie's label, RCA Records , was shocked after hearing Low . Fearing the album would perform poorly commercially, RCA delayed its original planned release date in November 1976, releasing it instead in January 1977. Upon release, it received little to no promotion from either RCA or Bowie. Bowie felt it
16554-491: The first record, and worldwide hit, for the Virgin Records label, which became a mainstay of the genre. Instrumental rock was particularly significant in continental Europe, allowing bands like Kraftwerk , Tangerine Dream , Can , Focus (band) and Faust to circumvent the language barrier. Their synthesiser-heavy " krautrock ", along with the work of Brian Eno (for a time the keyboard player with Roxy Music ), would be
16732-451: The folk scene. The first group to advertise themselves as psychedelic rock were the 13th Floor Elevators from Texas. The Beatles introduced many of the major elements of the psychedelic sound to audiences in this period, such as guitar feedback , the Indian sitar and backmasking sound effects . Psychedelic rock particularly took off in California's emerging music scene as groups followed
16910-503: The format of rock operas and opened the door to concept albums , often telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme. King Crimson 's 1969 début album, In the Court of the Crimson King , which mixed powerful guitar riffs and mellotron , with jazz and symphonic music , is often taken as the key recording in progressive rock, helping the widespread adoption of the genre in
17088-453: The impetus was soon taken up by a second wave of bands that drew their inspiration more directly from American blues , including the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds . British blues musicians of the late 1950s and early 1960s had been inspired by the acoustic playing of figures such as Lead Belly , who was a major influence on the Skiffle craze, and Robert Johnson . Increasingly they adopted
17266-616: The initial line-up of the band only lasted for one album, 1974's Axe Victim , and a short tour. Shortly after this, Nelson dissolved the band and reformed with a new line-up with bassist Paul Jeffreys , keyboardist Milton Reame-James (both formerly of Cockney Rebel ) and drummer Simon Fox , the latter introduced by Reame-James to Nelson. Jeffreys and Reame-James soon departed the band, and New Zealand-born bassist-vocalist Charlie Tumahai (formerly of Australian bands Mississippi and Healing Force) joined in late 1974. This line-up recorded 1975's Futurama album (produced by Roy Thomas Baker ,
17444-460: The invasion included the Kinks and the Dave Clark Five . The British Invasion helped internationalize the production of rock and roll, opening the door for subsequent British (and Irish) performers to achieve international success. In America it arguably spelled the end of instrumental surf music, vocal girl groups and (for a time) the teen idols , that had dominated the American charts in
17622-511: The label were R&B oriented white rock bands that made use of jazzy horn sections, like Electric Flag , Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago , to become some of the most commercially successful acts of the later 1960s and the early 1970s. British acts to emerge in the same period from the blues scene, to make use of the tonal and improvisational aspects of jazz, included Nucleus and the Graham Bond and John Mayall spin-off Colosseum . From
17800-446: The late 1950s and 1960s. It dented the careers of established R&B acts like Fats Domino and Chubby Checker and even temporarily derailed the chart success of surviving rock and roll acts, including Elvis. The British Invasion also played a major part in the rise of a distinct genre of rock music, and cemented the primacy of the rock group, based on guitars and drums and producing their own material as singer-songwriters. Following
17978-432: The latter regularly during the American leg of the tour. Biographers Marc Spitz and Hugo Wilcken later recognised Another Green World in particular as a major influence on the sound Bowie aimed to create for Low ; Bowie biographer Christopher Sandford also cites Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) (1974) as an influence on Bowie. Individually, the two became infatuated with the German music scene, including
18156-482: The lead role in the David Hemmings film Just a Gigolo (1978), set in pre-World War II Berlin. It was around the time of Lodger (1979) that Bowie began framing his previous two albums as the beginning of a Berlin-centred trilogy, concluding with Lodger , largely as a marketing technique to support the unusual new album. Compared to its two predecessors, Lodger abandons the electronic and ambient styles and
18334-519: The listener into new worlds, "offer[ing] full immersion into another universe of sound and vision ". Three years later, Classic Rock History ranked the Berlin Trilogy as Bowie's seventh greatest work, calling the three albums a "fascinating chapter" in Bowie's life. Commentators regard the Berlin Trilogy as among the most innovative works of Bowie's career. When reviewing Bowie's 1995 album Outside , Barry Walters of Spin compared its sound to that of
18512-475: The live one, apart from a tantalizing snippet of the audience singing along to "Down On Terminal Street". That recording – now featuring the song in its entirety – and a number of other live Modern Music tracks finally surfaced on 2011's five-CD set Futurist Manifesto . 1978's Drastic Plastic , recorded at Juan-Les-Pins in the South of France with influences of punk , new wave and David Bowie's Berlin Trilogy ,
18690-410: The loudest, wildest, most electrified fusion bands from the jazz camp, but most often it describes performers coming from the rock side of the equation." Jazz-rock "...generally grew out of the most artistically ambitious rock subgenres of the late '60s and early '70s", including the singer-songwriter movement. Many early US rock and roll musicians had begun in jazz and carried some of these elements into
18868-413: The lyrics, often in response to the music Bowie was creating. During its recording, Bowie developed a new process, where the backing tracks were recorded first, followed by overdubs, with lyrics and vocals written and recorded last. He heavily favoured this "three-phase" process, which he would use for the rest of his career. Because The Idiot was recorded before Low , the album has been referred to as
19046-476: The many recordings which have been suggested as "the first rock and roll record ". Contenders include " Strange Things Happening Every Day " by Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1944); " That's All Right " by Arthur Crudup (1946), which was later covered by Elvis Presley in 1954; " The House of Blue Lights " by Ella Mae Morse and Freddie Slack (1946); Wynonie Harris ' " Good Rocking Tonight " (1948); Goree Carter 's "Rock Awhile" (1949); Jimmy Preston 's " Rock
19224-586: The microphone, after seeing Pop do so for The Idiot . "Heroes" was released in October 1977 in the wake of the punk rock movement. RCA marketed the album with the slogan, "There's Old Wave. There's New Wave . And there's David Bowie ...". Like Low , "Heroes" was commercially successful—more so in the UK than in the US. Bowie promoted "Heroes" extensively, conducting numerous interviews and performing on various television programmes, including Marc , Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas , and Top of
19402-669: The mid-1950s by white singers such as Carl Perkins , Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and with the greatest commercial success, Elvis Presley . Hispanic and Latino American movements in rock and roll, which would eventually lead to the success of Latin rock and Chicano rock within the US, began to rise in the Southwest ; with rock and roll standard musician Ritchie Valens and even those within other heritage genres, such as Al Hurricane along with his brothers Tiny Morrie and Baby Gaby as they began combining rock and roll with country- western within traditional New Mexico music . In addition,
19580-603: The mid-1960s the Left Banke , the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys, had pioneered the inclusion of harpsichords , wind , and string sections on their recordings to produce a form of Baroque rock and can be heard in singles like Procol Harum 's " A Whiter Shade of Pale " (1967), with its Bach -inspired introduction. The Moody Blues used a full orchestra on their album Days of Future Passed (1967) and subsequently created orchestral sounds with synthesizers. Classical orchestration, keyboards, and synthesizers were
19758-479: The mid-1960s and so called because of the perception that it was rehearsed in the suburban family garage. Garage rock songs often revolved around the traumas of high school life, with songs about "lying girls" and unfair social circumstances being particularly common. The lyrics and delivery tended to be more aggressive than was common at the time, often with growled or shouted vocals that dissolved into incoherent screaming. They ranged from crude one-chord music (like
19936-435: The mid-1960s as acts developed a sound similar to British blues musicians. Key acts included Paul Butterfield (whose band acted like Mayall's Bluesbreakers in Britain as a starting point for many successful musicians), Canned Heat , the early Jefferson Airplane , Janis Joplin , Johnny Winter , the J. Geils Band and Jimi Hendrix with his power trios , the Jimi Hendrix Experience (which included two British members, and
20114-580: The mid-1960s began to advance the album ahead of the single as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, with the Beatles at the forefront of this development. Their contributions lent the genre a cultural legitimacy in the mainstream and initiated a rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. By the late 1960s " classic rock " period, a few distinct rock music subgenres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock , folk rock , country rock , Southern rock , raga rock , and jazz rock , which contributed to
20292-401: The mid-1960s onwards, rock music often used the verse–chorus structure derived from blues and folk music, but there has been considerable variation from this model. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock. Because of its complex history and its tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that "it is impossible to bind rock music to
20470-493: The money for Nelson to take his seven-piece band Bill Nelson and the Lost Satellites, originally formed to play the 2002 Nelsonica convention, on tour around the UK as The Be Bop Deluxe And Beyond Tour. The drummer for the tour was Nick Dew who, under the name Nicholas Chatterton-Dew, had played with Be-Bop Deluxe in the early days. The sax player was Ian Nelson, who died two years later in 2006. Nelson subsequently put together
20648-449: The months between the releases of Low and The Idiot , as having been influenced by both albums. Joy Division themselves have acknowledged Low ' s influence on the band; their original name was "Warsaw", a reference to the Low track "Warszawa". The band's drummer, Stephen Morris , told Uncut magazine in 2001 that when they made their 1978 An Ideal for Living EP, the band asked
20826-404: The music on Bowie's prior releases of the Berlin Trilogy, like Gary Numan , were becoming popular. Although Lodger performed well commercially, Numan out-performed Bowie commercially throughout the year. According to Buckley, Numan's fame led indirectly to Bowie taking a more pop-oriented direction for his next studio album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980), his first release after
21004-460: The music. Side one consists primarily of short, direct avant-pop song-fragments; side two comprises longer, mostly instrumental tracks. In 1977, Bowie said side one was about himself and his "prevailing moods" at the time while side two was about his musical observations living in Berlin. Low features a unique drum sound created by Visconti using an Eventide H910 Harmonizer . When Bowie asked him what it did, Visconti replied, "It fucks with
21182-461: The new music genre zeuhl with their first albums in the early 1970s. Greater commercial success was enjoyed by Pink Floyd, who also moved away from psychedelia after the departure of Syd Barrett in 1968, with The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), seen as a masterpiece of the genre, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time. There was an emphasis on instrumental virtuosity, with Yes showcasing
21360-591: The new music. In Britain the subgenre of blues rock, and many of its leading figures, like Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce of the Eric Clapton -fronted band Cream , had emerged from the British jazz scene. Often highlighted as the first true jazz-rock recording is the only album by the relatively obscure New York–based the Free Spirits with Out of Sight and Sound (1966). The first group of bands to self-consciously use
21538-409: The period, Bowie also co-wrote and produced Iggy Pop 's debut solo album The Idiot (1977) and follow-up Lust for Life (also 1977); the former features a sound similar to that which Bowie explored on the trilogy. Bowie began referring to the three albums as a Berlin-centred trilogy during the promotion of Lodger , although "Heroes" was the only instalment recorded completely in the city; Low
21716-465: The psychedelic rock and the Canterbury scenes came Soft Machine, who, it has been suggested, produced one of the artistically successfully fusions of the two genres. Perhaps the most critically acclaimed fusion came from the jazz side of the equation, with Miles Davis , particularly influenced by the work of Hendrix, incorporating rock instrumentation into his sound for the album Bitches Brew (1970). It
21894-628: The regional hit " Let's Go Trippin ' " in 1961 and launched the surf music craze, following up with songs like " Misirlou " (1962). Like Dale and his Del-Tones , most early surf bands were formed in Southern California, including the Bel-Airs , the Challengers , and Eddie & the Showmen . The Chantays scored a top ten national hit with " Pipeline " in 1963 and probably the best-known surf tune
22072-463: The release of Radiohead 's Kid A (2000). Billboard similarly notes it was not until Kid A that rock and electronic would once again meet and move forward in such a mature fashion. Although "Heroes" was the best-received work of the Berlin Trilogy on release, in subsequent decades critical and public opinion has typically shifted in favour of Low as the more ground-breaking record owing to its daring experimental achievements. Pegg writes
22250-462: The resultant video and audio recording has subsequently been reissued on other formats including CD and LP. However, having signed away his rights to these recordings, Nelson has made no money on any of the Metropolis Studios releases. In 2011, EMI upgraded the Be-Bop Deluxe catalogue remastered by Peter Mew featuring all of the band's original albums. EMI and Bill Nelson chose to include all of
22428-400: The rise of rock and roll in the US, found new popularity in the UK, visiting with successful tours. Lonnie Donegan 's 1955 hit " Rock Island Line " was a major influence and helped to develop the trend of skiffle music groups throughout the country, many of which, including John Lennon 's Quarrymen (later the Beatles ), moved on to play rock and roll. While former rock and roll market in
22606-475: The romantic concept of art as artistic expression, original and sincere". In the new millennium, the term rock has occasionally been used as a blanket term including forms like pop music, reggae music , soul music , and even hip hop , which it has been influenced with but often contrasted through much of its history. Christgau has used the term broadly to refer to popular and semipopular music that caters to his sensibility as "a rock-and-roller", including
22784-517: The same era, and by percussion produced from a drum kit that combines drums and cymbals. This trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, the Hammond organ , and the synthesizer. The basic rock instrumentation was derived from the basic blues band instrumentation (prominent lead guitar, second chordal instrument, bass, and drums). A group of musicians performing rock music
22962-533: The setlist was made up entirely of tracks from the Drastic Plastic album. Immediately thereafter, Nelson formed a new band, Bill Nelson's Red Noise , retaining Andy Clark on keyboards, and adding his brother Ian on saxophone, in which capacity the latter had previously contributed to "Ships in the Night". An album followed. Nelson has subsequently released numerous albums and singles under his own name, frequently playing all instruments himself. Nelson planned
23140-524: The seven-piece Bill Nelson and the Gentlemen Rocketeers, which included Dave Sturt (bass) and Theo Travis (assorted woodwind, brass), and, once again, Nick Dew on drums, to play songs with vocals from the extensive Be-Bop Deluxe/Bill Nelson back catalogue at his annual Nelsonica event in Yorkshire. In March 2011, the band played live to cameras at Metropolis Studios, London. Initially released on DVD,
23318-543: The singles format to albums and achieved cultural legitimacy in the mainstream. Led by the Beatles in the mid-1960s, rock musicians advanced the LP as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, initiating a rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. Progressive rock, a term sometimes used interchangeably with art rock , moved beyond established musical formulas by experimenting with different instruments, song types, and forms. From
23496-413: The skills of both guitarist Steve Howe and keyboard player Rick Wakeman , while Emerson, Lake & Palmer were a supergroup who produced some of the genre's most technically demanding work. Jethro Tull and Genesis both pursued very different, but distinctly English, brands of music. Renaissance , formed in 1969 by ex-Yardbirds Jim McCarty and Keith Relf, evolved into a high-concept band featuring
23674-401: The song/instrumental split that defined the two earlier works, in favour of more conventional song structures. Instead, Lodger features a variety of musical styles, including new wave, Middle Eastern music , reggae and krautrock. Some of its musical textures, particularly on "African Night Flight", have been cited by The Quietus as presaging the popularity of world music . Lodger
23852-471: The songs on Low . Visconti would describe the album as "a very positive version of Low ". It follows the same structure as its predecessor, with side one featuring more conventional tracks and side two featuring mostly instrumental tracks. "Heroes" was the only instalment of the Berlin Trilogy recorded entirely in Berlin. Most of the same personnel on Low returned to record, with the addition of Bowie on piano, and guitarist Robert Fripp , formerly of
24030-448: The songs revive a "perennial motif" prevailing throughout the Berlin Trilogy, highlighting the line, "I've lived all over the world, I've left every place" from the Low track " Be My Wife ", pointing out the journey is both metaphorical and geographical. Lodger was released in May 1979, almost two years after "Heroes" . Buckley notes that music videos and artists who were influenced by
24208-421: The spotlight. Although The Idiot was completed by August 1976, Bowie wanted to be sure he had his own album in stores before its release. Château owner and The Idiot bassist Laurent Thibault opined that, "[Bowie] didn't want people to think he'd been inspired by Iggy's album, when in fact it was all the same thing." Although reviewers consider The Idiot good in its own right, Pop's fans have criticised
24386-417: The spring of 1975. His drug intake escalated so that decades later, he recalled almost nothing of the recording of Station to Station , saying, "I know it was in L.A. because I've read it was." Although he enjoyed commercial success during this period, particularly with the singles " Fame " and " Golden Years ", he was ready to rid himself of the drug culture of Los Angeles and get sober. After abandoning
24564-460: The stage. ... Without the oblivion that drugs had brought, he was now in a healthy enough mental condition to want to make friends." He played tracks from both Low and "Heroes" on the tour. Recordings from the tour were included on the live album Stage , released later the same year, and again from a different venue in 2018 on Welcome to the Blackout . During this time he also portrayed
24742-610: The studio to record Pop's second solo album Lust for Life (1977). Bowie had less influence over Lust for Life . Instead, he let Pop compose his own arrangements for the tracks, resulting in a sound more reminiscent of Pop's earlier work. Recording took place at Hansa by the Wall in West Berlin and was completed in two and a half weeks, from May to June 1977, and released in August. Although Bowie had told interviewers he planned to collaborate on
24920-419: The then producer for Queen ) and was then supplemented by keyboardist Andrew Clark for the subsequent tour, after which Clark joined the band. This final line-up remained constant until the band's dissolution in 1978. Jeffreys died in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988. Stylistically, the songs took elements from progressive rock, glam rock (the band had flirted with make-up in
25098-610: The three-octave voice of Annie Haslam . Most British bands depended on a relatively small cult following, but a handful, including Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Jethro Tull, managed to produce top ten singles at home and break the American market. The American brand of progressive rock varied from the eclectic and innovative Frank Zappa , Captain Beefheart and Blood, Sweat & Tears , to more pop rock orientated bands like Boston , Foreigner , Kansas , Journey , and Styx . These, beside British bands Supertramp and ELO , all demonstrated
25276-449: The time, 1996 In the summer of 1974, David Bowie developed a cocaine addiction. Over the following two years, his addiction worsened, affecting both his physical and mental state. He recorded both Young Americans (1975) and Station to Station (1976), and filmed The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), while under the influence of the drug. He attributed his growing addiction to the city of Los Angeles, California, where he moved in
25454-470: The trilogy as an " art rock trifecta". In 2017, Chris Gerard of PopMatters considered the trilogy, along with Scary Monsters , among "the most vital and influential [albums] by anyone in the rock era". He found the albums to be the reason Bowie is "so profoundly revered", further describing them as "uncompromising and untethered artistic expressions with no commercial considerations limiting...scope". He concluded by praising these albums' abilities to take
25632-470: The unofficial beginning of Bowie's Berlin period, as its music featured a sound reminiscent of that which Bowie would explore in the Berlin Trilogy. Bowie and Tony Visconti co-mixed it at Hansa Studios in West Berlin . Bowie became fascinated with Berlin, finding it a place of great escape. In love with the city, he and Pop decided to move there in a further attempt to kick their drug habits and escape
25810-409: The vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major subcultures including mods and rockers in the U.K., the hippie movement and the wider Western counterculture movement that spread out from San Francisco in the U.S. in the 1960s, the latter of which continues to this day. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the goth , punk, and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of
25988-430: The work at Glass's Looking Glass Studios in New York and his Point Music label released it in 1993. Speaking about the album, Glass said: "They were doing what few other people were trying to do – which was to create an art within the realm of popular music. I listened to it constantly." On his decision to create a symphony based on the record, Glass said: "In the question of Bowie and Eno's original Low LP, to me there
26166-524: The work of the Beach Boys , formed in 1961 in Southern California. Their early albums included both instrumental surf rock (among them covers of music by Dick Dale) and vocal songs, drawing on rock and roll and doo wop and the close harmonies of vocal pop acts like the Four Freshmen . The Beach Boys first chart hit, " Surfin ' " in 1961 reached the Billboard top 100 and helped make the surf music craze
26344-533: The work of established performers such as the Rolling Stones' Beggar's Banquet (1968) and the Beatles' Let It Be (1970). Reflecting on this change of trends in rock music over the past few years, Christgau wrote in his June 1970 "Consumer Guide" column that this "new orthodoxy" and "cultural lag" abandoned improvisatory, studio-ornamented productions in favor of an emphasis on "tight, spare instrumentation" and song composition: "Its referents are '50s rock, country music, and rhythm-and-blues, and its key inspiration
26522-553: The work. The singer eventually collapsed, admitting later, "There were pieces of me laying all over the floor." One instrumental composed for the soundtrack evolved into "Subterraneans", later properly recorded for Low ; the remaining material was scrapped. When Bowie presented his material for the film to Nicolas Roeg , the director decided it would not be suitable; Roeg preferred a more folksy sound. The soundtrack's eventual composer John Phillips described Bowie's material as "haunting and beautiful". Six months after Bowie's proposal
26700-404: The world, except as a new brand of painkiller ... In the '70s the powerful took over, as rock industrialists capitalized on the national mood to reduce potent music to an often reactionary species of entertainment—and to transmute rock's popular base from the audience to market." Roots rock is the term now used to describe a move away from what some saw as the excesses of the psychedelic scene, to
26878-570: Was John Mayall ; his band, the Bluesbreakers , included Eric Clapton (after Clapton's departure from the Yardbirds) and later Peter Green . Particularly significant was the release of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (Beano) album (1966), considered one of the seminal British blues recordings and the sound of which was much emulated in both Britain and the United States. Eric Clapton went on to form supergroups Cream, Blind Faith , and Derek and
27056-676: Was 1963's " Wipe Out ", by the Surfaris , which hit number 2 and number 10 on the Billboard charts in 1965. Surf rock was also popular in Europe during this time, with the British group the Shadows scoring hits in the early 1960s with instrumentals such as " Apache " (1960) and " Kon-Tiki " (1961), while Swedish surf group the Spotnicks saw success in both Sweden and Britain. Surf music achieved its greatest commercial success as vocal pop music, particularly
27234-473: Was a major influence on subsequent rock-influenced jazz artists, including Herbie Hancock , Chick Corea and Weather Report . The genre began to fade in the late 1970s, as a mellower form of fusion began to take its audience, but acts like Steely Dan , Frank Zappa and Joni Mitchell recorded significant jazz-influenced albums in this period, and it has continued to be a major influence on rock music. Reflecting on developments that occurred in rock music in
27412-411: Was a substantial stylistic change from the progressive/guitar rock of the early Be-Bop Deluxe. Eager to embrace the changing musical landscape, Nelson dissolved Be-Bop Deluxe. The band appeared three times on BBC's The Old Grey Whistle Test , performing a total of six songs and once on Top of the Pops , with their 1976 single, "Ships In The Night." For the band's Sight & Sound concert in 1978
27590-404: Was adamant about not taking the spotlight away from Pop, often staying behind his keyboard and not addressing the audience. Despite this, some reviewers believed Bowie was still in charge. Likewise, during interviews, Pop was often asked more about Bowie than his own work. As a result, Pop took a more direct approach when making Lust for Life . At the end of the tour, Bowie and Pop returned to
27768-464: Was also suffering from drug addiction, was ready to get sober and accepted Bowie's invitation to accompany him on the Isolar tour, and then move to Europe with him. After they relocated to the Château, Bowie travelled back to Switzerland, where he spent the next few weeks writing and devising plans for his next album. Bowie composed a majority of the music for The Idiot (1977), while Pop wrote most of
27946-430: Was an influence in the 1980s on new wave , post-punk and eventually alternative rock . From the 1990s, alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break into the mainstream in the form of grunge , Britpop , and indie rock . Further fusion subgenres have since emerged, including pop-punk , electronic rock , rap rock , and rap metal . Some movements were conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including
28124-429: Was clearly a happy relationship: Leckie would go on to produce all the subsequent Be-Bop Deluxe and Bill Nelson's Red Noise albums for Harvest, including the proposed Red Noise album Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam that Harvest refused to release. Nelson shared producing credits with Leckie from Drastic Plastic onward. The first three Be-Bop Deluxe albums are all, in one way or another, named after guitars. "Axe"
28302-472: Was common in the lyrics, along with the more traditional themes of love and the human condition. Rock music Rock is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll " in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles from the mid-1960s, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has its roots in rock and roll,
28480-424: Was continued in the 1970s by figures such as George Thorogood and Pat Travers , but, particularly on the British scene (except perhaps for the advent of groups such as Status Quo and Foghat who moved towards a form of high energy and repetitive boogie rock ), bands became focused on heavy metal innovation, and blues rock began to slip out of the mainstream. By the 1960s, the scene that had developed out of
28658-415: Was expected to be wholly responsible for the film's music but found that "when I'd finished five or six pieces, I was then told that if I would care to submit my music along with some other people's ... and I just said 'Shit, you're not getting any of it.' I was so furious, I'd put so much work into it." Station to Station co-producer Harry Maslin argued Bowie was "burned out" and could not complete
28836-472: Was flattered by the symphony and gave it unanimous praise, as did Pegg. In 1997, Glass adapted "Heroes" into a classical suite, titled "Heroes" Symphony . The piece is separated into six movements; each is named after tracks on "Heroes" . Like its predecessor, Glass acknowledged Eno's contributions as equal to Bowie's on the original album and credited the movements to the two equally. American choreographer Twyla Tharp developed "Heroes" Symphony into
29014-561: Was founded in Britain), and Band of Gypsys , whose guitar virtuosity and showmanship would be among the most emulated of the decade. Blues rock bands from the southern states, like the Allman Brothers Band , Lynyrd Skynyrd , and ZZ Top , incorporated country elements into their style to produce the distinctive genre Southern rock . Early blues rock bands often emulated jazz, playing long, involved improvisations, which would later be
29192-413: Was fully ready to move to Berlin but had already booked another month of studio time at the Château, so recording began there. Bowie and Visconti co-produced the album, with contributions from Eno. Visconti, who was absent for the recording of Station to Station because of conflicting schedules, was brought back to co-produce after mixing The Idiot . Despite being widely perceived as a co-producer, Eno
29370-522: Was his "least commercial" record, and rather than promote it opted to tour as Pop's keyboardist. Despite the lack of promotion, Low was a commercial success. The success of the single " Sound and Vision " helped Bowie to persuade RCA to release The Idiot , which they did in March 1977. Although RCA was hoping he would tour to support Low , Bowie toured with Pop as he promoted The Idiot . The tour began on 1 March 1977 and ended on 16 April. Bowie
29548-421: Was in serious public decline, emotionally and socially. I think I was very much on course to be another rock casualty. In fact, I’m quite certain I wouldn't have survived the '70s if I'd carried on doing what I was doing. But I was lucky enough to know somewhere within me that I was really killing myself, and I had to do something drastic to pull myself out of that. – David Bowie discussing his mental state at
29726-407: Was no doubt that both talent and quality were evident there ... My generation was sick to death of academics telling us what was good and what wasn't." Glass used both original themes and themes from three of the record's instrumentals for the symphony. The "Low" Symphony acknowledges Eno's contributions on the original record. Portraits of Bowie, Eno and Glass appear on the album cover. Bowie
29904-593: Was not. Visconti commented: "Brian is a great musician, and was very integral to the making of [the Berlin Trilogy]. But he was not the producer." According to biographer Paul Trynka, Eno arrived late in the sessions, after all the backing tracks for side one were "essentially" finished. Low ' s music delves into electronic , ambient, art rock and experimental rock . The tracks on Low emphasize tone and atmosphere, rather than guitar-based rock. German bands like Tangerine Dream, Neu! and Kraftwerk influence
30082-494: Was out of my mind, totally crazed." He later said: "It was a dangerous period for me. I was at the end of my tether physically and emotionally and had serious doubts about my sanity." At the conclusion of the Isolar tour on 18 May 1976, Bowie and his wife Angela moved to Switzerland. After completing Station to Station in December 1975, Bowie began work on a soundtrack for The Man Who Fell to Earth with Paul Buckmaster , his collaborator on Space Oddity (1969). Bowie
30260-696: Was recorded at Mountain Studios in Montreux , Switzerland, with additional recording at the Record Plant in New York City. Many of the same musicians from the previous records returned for the Lodger sessions; a new addition was future King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew . The sessions saw a greater emphasis on Eno's Oblique Strategies cards: "Boys Keep Swinging" entailed band members swapping instruments, "Move On" used
30438-510: Was recorded mostly in France, while Lodger was recorded in Switzerland and New York City. Though considered significant in artistic terms, the trilogy has proven less successful commercially. Bowie would later call the trilogy's music his "DNA". The albums of the trilogy received mixed reviews on release but garnered massive acclaim over time and have proven highly influential. While Low provided
30616-515: Was rejected, he sent Roeg a copy of Low with a note stating: "This is what I wanted to do for the soundtrack. It would have been a wonderful score." While on the Isolar tour in May 1976, Bowie met ex– Roxy Music keyboardist and conceptualist Brian Eno backstage at a London concert. Although the two had occasional meetups since 1973, they had yet to become friends. Since leaving Roxy Music, Eno released two ambient solo albums in 1975— Another Green World and Discreet Music ; Bowie listened to
30794-508: Was remastered in 2017 for Parlophone 's A New Career in a New Town (1977–1982) box set . Named after the Low track of the same name, it was released in CD, vinyl, and digital formats, as part of this compilation and then separately the following year. The box set also includes a new remix of Lodger by Visconti, which was approved by Bowie before his death in 2016 . Both The Idiot and Lust for Life were expanded and remastered in 2020 for
30972-515: Was taken up by bands including Pentangle , Steeleye Span and the Albion Band , which in turn prompted Irish groups like Horslips and Scottish acts like the JSD Band , Spencer's Feat and later Five Hand Reel , to use their traditional music to create a brand of Celtic rock in the early 1970s. Folk-rock reached its peak of commercial popularity in the period 1967–68, before many acts moved off in
31150-606: Was taking place globally in the aftermath of the Second World War . Cliff Richard is credited with one of the first rock and roll hits outside of North America with " Move It " (1959), effectively ushering in the sound of British rock . Several artists, most prominently Tommy Steele from the UK, found success with covers of major American rock and roll hits before the recordings could spread internationally, often translating them into local languages where appropriate. Steele in particular toured Britain, Scandinavia, Australia,
31328-439: Was the first commercially successful folk song to be recorded with rock and roll instrumentation and the Beatles " I'm a Loser " (1964), arguably the first Beatles song to be influenced directly by Dylan. The folk rock movement is usually thought to have taken off with the Byrds ' recording of Dylan's " Mr. Tambourine Man " which topped the charts in 1965. With members who had been part of the café-based folk scene in Los Angeles,
31506-424: Was the least well-received, with Rolling Stone calling it one of Bowie's weakest releases to date. Although each album reached the top five on the UK charts, they proved less commercially successful than Bowie's earlier records. Buckley writes that with his next album, Scary Monsters , Bowie achieved "the perfect balance" of creativity and mainstream success. Considered by Wilcken to be ahead of its time, Low
31684-430: Was the major force in American record sales and crooners , such as Eddie Fisher , Perry Como , and Patti Page , who had dominated the previous decade of popular music, found their access to the pop charts significantly curtailed. Rock and roll has been seen as leading to a number of distinct subgenres, including rockabilly, combining rock and roll with "hillbilly" country music, which was usually played and recorded in
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