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80-751: Aztec Camera were a Scottish pop / new wave band founded by Roddy Frame , the group's singer, songwriter and only consistent member. Established in 1980, Aztec Camera released a total of six studio albums: High Land, Hard Rain (1983), Knife (1984), Love (1987), Stray (1990), Dreamland (1993) and Frestonia (1995). The band garnered popular success for the songs " Oblivious ", " Somewhere in My Heart " and " Good Morning Britain " (a duet with former Clash guitarist Mick Jones ). Aztec Camera were formed in East Kilbride in 1980 by Roddy Frame and drummer David Mulholland after they had left

160-473: A chorus that contrasts melodically, rhythmically and harmonically with the verse . The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment. The lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions. Harmony and chord progressions in pop music are often "that of classical European tonality , only more simple-minded." Clichés include

240-473: A 1 August 2012 post on his Twitter profile, Frame explained that he was not involved with the Edsel Records reissue and was negotiating with a "supercool US label about releasing the definitive set (w/ rarities, home demos etc.)" in 2013. Domino Recording Company is the label that Frame referred to, but only High Land, Hard Rain was reissued, rather than the entire Aztec Camera catalog. In August 2013,

320-453: A B-side. Frame concluded, "I can't pick them [the successful songs]." Frame was asked during a television interview, following the release of Love , about the new sound of the album, and he referenced artists like Anita Baker and Luther Vandross . When asked if the album could be labelled " Middle of the road (MOR) ", Frame replied: "Call it what you like. I don't really mind." For the band's fourth album, Stray , Frame collaborated with

400-497: A London rehearsal studio that both Big Audio Dynamite and Aztec Camera were using. In an August 2014 radio interview, Frame elaborated further, stating that at the time he wrote the song, Jones lived near his London home; Frame visited Jones after recording the song and said to the Clash guitarist, "You'll either sing on it, or you'll want to sue me", as Frame believed the song was so similar to Jones' previous work. Frame then recorded

480-460: A basic format (often the verse–chorus structure ), and rhythms or tempos that can be easily danced to. Much of pop music also borrows elements from other styles such as rock, urban , dance , Latin , and country . The terms popular music and pop music are often used interchangeably, although the former more accurately describes all music that is targeted for mass appeal (compare art music ) and includes many disparate styles. Although much of

560-449: A comeback for Frame, as the preceding single "The Crying Scene" had only reached No. 70 in the UK. Roddy Frame – guitar, harmonica, vocals (1981–1995) Bass Guitar Keyboards Drums Frame changed the band's line-up numerous times over the course of its existence and, in a 1988 interview, Frame explained that the changes were underpinned by a desire to continually improve

640-750: A division of the Warner corporation that specialised in compilations; in 2005, Deep and Wide and Tall was released by the Warner Strategic Marketing United Kingdom label as part of the Warner Platinum series; and Walk Out To Winter: The Best of Aztec Camera , a two-disc collection that was released by the Music Club Deluxe label in 2011. Since the Stray Tour in 1990, Frame has merged a segment of

720-399: A light entertainment and easy listening tradition. Pop music is more conservative than other music genres such as folk, blues, country, and tradition. Many pop songs do not contain themes of resistance, opposition, or politics, rather focusing more on love and relationships. Therefore, pop music does not challenge its audiences socially, and does not cause political activism. Frith also said

800-498: A pop song is to them, songs from the 1960s turned out to be the most memorable, significantly more than songs from recent years 2000 to 2015. Before the progressive pop of the late 1960s, performers were typically unable to decide on the artistic content of their music. Assisted by the mid-1960s economic boom, record labels began investing in artists, giving them the freedom to experiment, and offering them limited control over their content and marketing. This situation declined after

880-460: A separation which was "also, broadly, one between boys and girls, middle-class and working-class." The latter half of the 20th century included a large-scale trend in American culture in which the boundaries between art and pop music were increasingly blurred. Between 1950 and 1970, there was a debate of pop versus art. Since then, certain music publications have embraced the music's legitimacy,

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960-588: A strong impression in the marketplace. The Love album produced the popular song " Somewhere in My Heart ", recorded by Frame with dance, R&B and pop producer Michael Jonzun in Boston. Frame said in 2014 that the song has been "great" for him, but at the time of creating the album, the song was not "in keeping" with the rest of Love . Frame revealed in a radio interview with the "Soho Social" program, presented by Dan Gray, that he considered "Somewhere in My Heart" an odd song and initially thought it would be best as

1040-416: A tendency to reflect existing trends rather than progressive developments ; and seeks to encourage dancing or uses dance-oriented rhythms. The main medium of pop music is the song, often between two and a half and three and a half minutes in length, generally marked by a consistent and noticeable rhythmic element , a mainstream style and a simple traditional structure . The structure of many popular songs

1120-475: A thriving pop music industry, most of which is devoted to Western-style pop. Japan has for several years produced a greater quantity of music than everywhere except the US. The spread of Western-style pop music has been interpreted variously as representing processes of Americanization, homogenization , modernization, creative appropriation, cultural imperialism , or a more general process of globalization . One of

1200-488: A trend referred to as " poptimism ". Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on traditional pop , an American counterpart to German Schlager and French Chanson , however compared to the pop of European countries, traditional pop originally emphasized influences ranging from Tin Pan Alley songwriting, Broadway theatre , and show tunes . As

1280-449: A very moving thing ... It [30th anniversary tour] was a very moving experience. It was like we were all revisiting our teenage years together, and it was nostalgic, but in a nice, happy, positive way. Frame explained in May 2014 that the tour was arranged after he had reconnected with his former Aztec Camera manager, Johnson, who received a call from a prominent UK promoter who asked Frame if he

1360-533: A wide audience [...] since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the special meaning of non-classical mus[ic], usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as The Beatles , The Rolling Stones , ABBA , etc." Grove Music Online also states that "[...] in the early 1960s, [the term] 'pop music' competed terminologically with beat music [in England], while in the US its coverage overlapped (as it still does) with that of 'rock and roll'". From about 1967,

1440-417: Is "designed to appeal to everyone" but "doesn't come from any particular place or mark off any particular taste". Frith adds that it is "not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward [...] and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative". It is, "provided from on high (by record companies, radio programmers, and concert promoters) rather than being made from below (...) Pop

1520-425: Is all the collective clubs around the world. Radio is just doing its best to keep up." Songs that talked of escapism through partying became the most popular, influenced by the impulse to forget the economic troubles that had taken over the world after the 2008 crash . Throughout the 2010s, a lot of pop music also began to take cues from Alternative pop . Popularized by artists such as Lana Del Rey and Lorde in

1600-526: Is just the singles charts and not the sum of all chart music. The music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical , jazz , rock , and novelty songs . As a genre, pop music is seen to exist and develop separately. Therefore, the term "pop music" may be used to describe a distinct genre, designed to appeal to all, often characterized as "instant singles-based music aimed at teenagers" in contrast to rock music as "album-based music for adults". Pop music continuously evolves along with

1680-597: Is largely the story of the intertwining pop culture of the United States and the United Kingdom in the postwar era.  — Bob Stanley According to Grove Music Online , "Western-derived pop styles, whether coexisting with or marginalizing distinctively local genres, have spread throughout the world and have come to constitute stylistic common denominators in global commercial music cultures". Some non-Western countries, such as Japan, have developed

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1760-479: Is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged". According to Frith, characteristics of pop music include an aim of appealing to a general audience, rather than to a particular sub-culture or ideology, and an emphasis on craftsmanship rather than formal "artistic" qualities. Besides, Frith also offers three identifying characteristics of pop music: light entertainment, commercial imperatives, and personal identification. Pop music grew out of

1840-430: Is that of a verse and a chorus, the chorus serving as the portion of the track that is designed to stick in the ear through simple repetition both musically and lyrically. The chorus is often where the music builds towards and is often preceded by "the drop" where the bass and drum parts "drop out". Common variants include the verse-chorus form and the thirty-two-bar form , with a focus on melodies and catchy hooks , and

1920-546: The Billboard 200 . Frame later revealed that the song " Oblivious " was consciously written as a Top of the Pops -type pop song and received a corresponding degree of popularity. During the recording process for the album, Frame used a different guitar for every song. For the song "Orchid Girl", Frame explained in 2013—during the 30th anniversary tour—that he was attempting to merge the influences of his favorite guitarist at

2000-564: The Clyde 2 radio station that Owens thanked him backstage after the show and the gesture made the experience worthwhile. At the Glasgow show, Frame and his band also played songs, such as "Green Jacket Grey", that were recorded for High Land, Hard Rain , but did not appear on the final track listing. When asked in April 2014 about reconnecting with a record that he wrote as a teenager while around

2080-596: The Red Hot Organization . The proceeds from the album benefited HIV/AIDS research. The band's album Love was among the nominations for "Best British Album" at the 1989 Brit Awards . "Somewhere in My Heart", the third single from Love , was the band's biggest hit, reaching No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart . Following the release of the Stray album, "Good Morning Britain" was considered to be

2160-434: The barbershop quartet-style harmony (i.e. ii – V – I) and blues scale -influenced harmony. There was a lessening of the influence of traditional views of the circle of fifths between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, including less predominance for the dominant function . In October 2023, Billboard compiled a list of "the 500 best pop songs". In doing so, they noted the difficulty of defining "pop songs": One of

2240-435: The American and (from the mid-1960s) British music industries , whose influence has made pop music something of an international monoculture, but most regions and countries have their own form of pop music, sometimes producing local versions of wider trends, and lending them local characteristics. Some of these trends (for example Europop ) have had a significant impact on the development of the genre. The story of pop music

2320-648: The Bob Dylan song "It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" into "Down the Dip", from High Land, Hard Rain , and this version of the song was played by Frame at subsequent shows, up until October 2012. Around 2012, Frame included a segment of the Curtis Mayfield song "People Get Ready" in live solo versions of the song "How Men Are", from the Love album. In October 2013, a book entitled The Lyrics: Roddy Frame —containing

2400-564: The British "indie ethic" and was listening to the "pop end of hip hop", including artists such as Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, Cherrelle , the Force MDs and Alexander O'Neal . Frame wanted to make a record based on such influences and "Working in a Goldmine" was the first song to achieve this aspiration. Frame relocated to the US to record the album—"pretty much against the wishes of Warner Brothers", who were unsure of his decision-making at

2480-548: The Clash 's Mick Jones on the song " Good Morning Britain ", and Jones also toured with the band following the album's release. Jones performed with Aztec Camera at the Glasgow Barrowlands and the Ibiza Festival in 1990. In a 1990 interview, recorded during a tour of Japan, Frame explained that he wrote "Good Morning Britain" in 45 minutes after a two- to three-hour conversation with Jones in the canteen of

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2560-651: The Domino reissue of High Land, Hard Rain was released in Europe to commemorate the album's 30th anniversary. The reissue was remastered from the original analogue tapes and was physically produced only as a vinyl pressing, but was sold with a digital download of the album. Domino released an expanded second version of the 30th anniversary reissue of High Land, Hard Rain in 2014 for North America that consisted of two compact discs, 16 additional rarities and liner notes from American music journalist David Fricke (a vinyl version

2640-755: The Swedish Albums Chart. The original release did not include the acoustic cover of " Jump " by Van Halen ; this was added after Aztec Camera's version (originally the B-side of " All I Need Is Everything ") gained popularity. Shortly after New Years Day 1984, Aztec Camera went through a significant line-up change that saw the retention of frontman Roddy Frame and bassist Campbell Owens, adding drummer David Ruffy, guitarist Malcolm Ross of Orange Juice and keyboardist Guy Fletcher of Dire Straits . Author Dave Thompson wrote in his book Alternative Rock (2000) that this shift altered Frame's vision for

2720-417: The age of 50 years, Frame replied: The songs that you write when you're young are just a part of you—they stay with you. The interesting thing was how far I kind of strayed from the original versions over the years—I mean acoustically and everything. So, coming back and stripping them down and trying to revisit them in a kind of honest, genuine fashion was actually—even for an old cynic like me—it turned to be

2800-479: The album was played in its entirety with a full band. The December 2013 shows occurred in London, Manchester and Glasgow, UK. To replicate the sound of the original recording, Frame switched guitars at the start of each song during the anniversary shows, to match the instrument used in the studio. Original Aztec Camera bassist Campbell Owens attended the Glasgow performance as an audience member—Frame later explained on

2880-541: The album. Prior to the album's release, the band previewed a selection of songs as part of a performance for the BBC television show Rock Around the Clock and the song "All I Need is Everything" received radio airplay subsequent to release. In a 2007 interview alongside Collins, Frame explained further: He's [Knopfler] a great guitarist. Mark Knopfler's recording techniques were great—you [Collins] would have liked him, 'cos that

2960-494: The atmosphere around his compositions is actually in the writing – it's got nothing to do with synthesisers. Frame's decision to ask Sakamoto was finalised after he saw his performance at the Japan Festival that was held in London, UK. During the recording process, Frame's routine consisted of: working in the studio from the early afternoon until around 2   am; a turkey sandwich at a deli off Times Square ("because it

3040-498: The band to the WEA record label—at the time his manager was Rob Johnson—and secured Knopfler as the producer for Aztec Camera's second album, Knife , which was released in 1984; Frame explained in 1988 that Knopfler was "professional" and efficient during the recording process. Frame's experimental mindset in relation to music emerged on Knife , as the duration of the titular song is nearly nine minutes and synthesizers appear throughout

3120-523: The band were invited to perform at a benefit concert for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) organisation in the late 1980s. Frame explained in a television interview prior to the concert that he was merely the entertainment and would not deliver any speeches. In 1990, Aztec Camera contributed the song " Do I Love You? " to the Cole Porter tribute album Red Hot + Blue that was produced by

3200-408: The band, and was replaced by Malcolm Ross on second guitar and backing vocals. Aztec Camera changed record labels once again for the release of their second album, Knife , which was released through WEA (Warner Music Group). Frame revealed in a May 2014 BBC radio interview that he was not informed of the ownership arrangements of the record deal, stating that he was unaware as an 18-year-old that

3280-411: The band; taking cues from Elvis Costello , Frame set about making what Thompson said was the "far wordier, if no less obsessively introspective canvas" which became Knife . It was produced by Mark Knopfler , also of Dire Straits. Thompson said Frame and Knopfler was "a marriage which guaranteed musical standards to match Frame's aspirations." During 1984, Aztec Camera's profile had been outmatched by

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3360-492: The birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country , blues , and hillbilly music . According to the website of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , the term "pop music" "originated in Britain in the mid-1950s as a description for rock and roll and the new youth music styles that it influenced". The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pop's "earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to

3440-775: The decade, it was common for pop producers, songwriters, and engineers to freely experiment with musical form, orchestration , unnatural reverb , and other sound effects. Some of the best known examples are Phil Spector 's Wall of Sound and Joe Meek 's use of homemade electronic sound effects for acts like the Tornados . At the same time, pop music on radio and in both American and British film moved away from refined Tin Pan Alley to more eccentric songwriting and incorporated reverb-drenched electric guitar, symphonic strings, and horns played by groups of properly arranged and rehearsed studio musicians. A 2019 study held by New York University in which 643 participants had to rank how familiar

3520-494: The early 2010s and later inspiring other highly influential artists including Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift , it gave space to a more sad and moody tone within pop music. Knife (album) Knife is the second album by Scottish indie pop group Aztec Camera , released on 21 September 1984. It reached number 14 on the UK Albums Chart  – their highest showing at that time. It also charted at No. 29 on

3600-565: The entirety of Frame's lyrical work with Aztec Camera—and a High Land, Hard Rain T-shirt were released as part of a "Roddy Frame" collection. All six Aztec Camera studio albums were reissued in August 2012 by the Edsel Records label, which had previously completed the same process for the studio albums of Everything but the Girl . The reissued editions included bonus tracks and live recordings. In

3680-578: The genre evolved more influences ranging from classical , folk , rock , country , electronic music , and other popular genres became more prominent. In 2016, a Scientific Reports study that examined over 464,000 recordings of popular music recorded between 1955 and 2010 found that, compared to 1960s pop music, contemporary pop music uses a smaller variety of pitch progressions, greater average volume, less diverse instrumentation and recording techniques, and less timbral variety. Scientific American ' s John Matson reported that this "seems to support

3760-409: The home. By the early 1980s, the promotion of pop music had been greatly affected by the rise of music television channels like MTV , which "favoured those artists such as Michael Jackson and Madonna who had a strong visual appeal". Multi-track recording (from the 1960s) and digital sampling (from the 1980s) have also been used as methods for the creation and elaboration of pop music. During

3840-414: The late 1970s and would not reemerge until the rise of Internet stars. Indie pop , which developed in the late 1970s, marked another departure from the glamour of contemporary pop music, with guitar bands formed on the then-novel premise that one could record and release their own music without having to procure a record contract from a major label. The 1980s are commonly remembered for an increase in

3920-401: The late 20th century that became global superstars include Whitney Houston , Michael Jackson , Madonna , George Michael , and Prince . At the beginning of the 2000s, the trends that dominated during the late 1990s still continued, but the music industry started to change as people began to download music from the internet. People were able to discover genres and artists that were outside of

4000-664: The latter's busy schedule. Frame finally met with Sakamoto in Ibiza and both eventually recorded the album in New York City, US over a four-week period. Frame's interest in Sakamoto was elaborated upon in the same interview: I liked what he did when he was in the Yellow Magic Orchestra, and I also liked that album where he plays the music from Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence on piano. That's where you realise that

4080-501: The main purpose of pop music is to create revenue. It is not a medium of free articulation of the people. Instead, pop music seeks to supply the nature of personal desire and achieve the instant empathy with cliche personalities, stereotypes, and melodrama that appeals to listeners. It is mostly about how much revenue pop music makes for record companies. Music scholar Timothy Warner said pop music typically has an emphasis on recording, production, and technology, rather than live performance;

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4160-514: The mainstream and propel them to fame, but at the same time smaller artists had a harder time making a living because their music was being pirated. Popular artists were Avril Lavigne , Justin Timberlake , NSYNC , Christina Aguilera , Destiny's Child , and Britney Spears . Pop music often came from many different genres, with each genre in turn influencing the next one, blurring the lines between them and making them less distinct. This change

4240-448: The manner in which pop has been disseminated", which helped to move pop music to "a record/radio/film star system". Another technological change was the widespread availability of television in the 1950s with televised performances, which meant that "pop stars had to have a visual presence". In the 1960s, the introduction of inexpensive, portable transistor radios meant that teenagers in the developed world could listen to music outside of

4320-403: The mid-1960s, pop music made repeated forays into new sounds, styles, and techniques that inspired public discourse among its listeners. The word "progressive" was frequently used, and it was thought that every song and single was to be a "progression" from the last. Music critic Simon Reynolds writes that beginning with 1967, a divide would exist between "progressive" pop and "mass/chart" pop,

4400-421: The music that appears on record charts is considered to be pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music . David Hatch and Stephen Millward describe pop music as "a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, and folk music". David Boyle, a music researcher, states pop music as any type of music that a person has been exposed to by the mass media. Most individuals think that pop music

4480-494: The next Aztec Camera album, Dreamland , with Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto . Released in 1993, the album was mixed by Julian Mendelsohn , who had previously worked with the band. While mixing the album at Hook End Manor, an 18th-century red-brick building that had been converted into a studio in the Berkshire countryside of England, UK, Frame explained that he waited for a lengthy period of time to work with Sakamoto, due to

4560-802: The pop music styles that developed alongside other music styles is Latin pop , which rose in popularity in the US during the 1950s with early rock and roll success Ritchie Valens . Later, Los Lobos and Chicano rock gained in popularity during the 1970s and 1980s, and musician Selena saw large-scale popularity in the 1980s and 1990s, along with crossover appeal with fans of Tejano musicians Lydia Mendoza and Little Joe . With later Hispanic and Latino Americans seeing success within pop music charts, 1990s pop successes stayed popular in both their original genres and in broader pop music. Latin pop hit singles, such as " Macarena " by Los del Río and " Despacito " by Luis Fonsi , have seen record-breaking success on worldwide pop music charts. Notable pop artists of

4640-400: The popular anecdotal observation that pop music of yore was "better", or at least more varied, than today's top-40 stuff". However, he also noted that the study may not have been entirely representative of pop in each generation. In the 1960s, the majority of mainstream pop music fell in two categories: guitar, drum and bass groups or singers backed by a traditional orchestra. Since early in

4720-598: The popularity of the Smiths , who Thompson said had borrowed from Frame's musical intent and made it more accessible. "All I Need Is Everything" was released as a single in September 1984. Thompson wrote that the "dubious recruitment" of Knopfler became a "godsend as Frame's earlier fragility starts turning towards darker, earthen energies." All songs written by Roddy Frame. Side one Side two Citations Sources This 1980s pop album–related article

4800-570: The punk-inspired band Neutral Blue. Aztec Camera first appeared on a Glasgow cassette-only compilation of local unsigned bands on the Pungent Records label, affiliated with the Fumes fanzine run by Danny Easson and John Gilhooly. The band's first United Kingdom (UK) single release was sold in a 7" format by Postcard Records —a Glasgow-based independent record label cofounded by Edwyn Collins and Alan Horne—in 1981. The single featured

4880-596: The quality of their music; however, he differentiated this desire from "blind ambition", whereby popular success is constantly sought after. Early members included Owens ( bass ) and Mulholland ( drums ). Gannon was a member from 1983 to 1984 before joining the Smiths , while guitarist Malcolm Ross (formerly of Josef K and Orange Juice ) joined the band in 1984 and played on the Knife album. Pop music Identifying factors of pop music usually include repeated choruses and hooks , short to medium-length songs written in

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4960-503: The reasons pop can be hard to summarize is because there’s no real sonic or musical definition to it. There are common elements to a lot of the biggest pop songs, but at the end of the day, "pop" means "popular" first and foremost, and just about any song that becomes popular enough...can be considered a pop song. In the 1940s, improved microphone design allowed a more intimate singing style and, ten or twenty years later, inexpensive and more durable 45 rpm records for singles "revolutionized

5040-492: The record company would own the rights to all of his corresponding recordings. After High Land, Hard Rain , Frame spent a significant amount of time living in New Orleans , United States (US), listening to Bob Dylan 's album Infidels . Upon reading that Dire Straits ' guitarist and singer Mark Knopfler produced the album, Frame began writing songs based on a sound that he thought Knopfler could work with. Frame signed

5120-499: The song "Just Like Gold" and a B-side entitled "We Could Send Letters"; an acoustic version of the latter song appeared on a compilation album , entitled C81 , that was released on cassette in 1981 through a partnership between NME magazine and Rough Trade Records . Frame, aged 16 years, met Collins for the first time during the Postcard period when the latter was 21 years old. A second single, also released in 1981, featured

5200-593: The song came first and he tried to complement that". On 21 January 1985, alongside Orange Juice , the Woodentops and Everything but the Girl , Aztec Camera raised an estimated £ 18,000 for the striking miners of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) through a fundraising event at the Brixton Academy —the year-long strike concluded six weeks later. Following the release of the Love album,

5280-510: The songs "Mattress of Wire" and "Lost Outside the Tunnel". Following the two 7" releases with Postcard, the group signed with Rough Trade Records in the UK and Sire Records in the United States (US) for their debut album. At this point, the band were officially a quartet: Roddy Frame (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Bernie Clark (piano, organ), Campbell Owens (bass) and Dave Ruffy (drums, percussion). Aztec Camera's debut album, High Land, Hard Rain

5360-399: The term "pop music" was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock music, a division that gave generic significance to both terms. While rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of popular music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible. According to British musicologist Simon Frith , pop music is produced "as a matter of enterprise not art", and

5440-419: The term's definition. According to music writer Bill Lamb, popular music is defined as "the music since industrialization in the 1800s that is most in line with the tastes and interests of the urban middle class." The term "pop song" was first used in 1926, in the sense of a piece of music "having popular appeal". Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as

5520-555: The third album, Love , a dance-pop outing that proved less popular. This development was throttled back for the group's fourth album Stray , which featured more streamlined rock singles and was described by AllMusic as a "loosely connected cycle mingling folk, soul, and pop in varying proportions". Over the group's career, their music has been described as new wave , sophisti-pop , jangle pop , indie pop , and post-punk . Frame cited guitarist John McGeoch as influential. "He chose very simple lines over anything bombastic [...]

5600-440: The time, Wes Montgomery , and punk rock icon Joe Strummer . In a late 1990s television interview, Frame explained that a "boy" image was associated with him during this era, and that he was annoyed by it at the time. He was taking his music very seriously—"you don't want to be called 'boy'; especially when you're listening to Joy Division "—but he eventually stopped caring about it. After High Land Hard Rain , Bernie Clarke left

5680-424: The time—and was primarily based in Boston, Massachusetts, and New York. Frame recorded with American session musicians, like Marcus Miller and David Franke, and explained that his audience was "mystified" by the transformation of the band, but he was "too far gone" to care and just wanted to do his "own thing" by that stage. Due to the significant change of musical direction, the album's first three singles did not make

5760-629: The use of digital recording , associated with the usage of synthesizers , with synth-pop music and other electronic genres featuring non-traditional instruments increasing in popularity. By 2014, pop music worldwide had been permeated by electronic dance music . In 2018, researchers at the University of California, Irvine , concluded that pop music has become 'sadder' since the 1980s. The elements of happiness and brightness have eventually been replaced with electronic beats making pop music more 'sad yet danceable'. Pop music has been dominated by

5840-436: Was ... then, it was quite a thing. 'Cos everyone was going digital, and going MIDI and all that, and his thing was all about using the right microphone. If you use the right microphone, then you don't have to use too much EQ and all that stuff, and it was all about that. Yeah, I kinda liked that—the right mic[rophone], the right amp[lifier], the right kind of board and stuff. At the time that the band's third album Love (1987)

5920-513: Was also released and was sold with a digital download card that provided the additional songs). To accompany the North American version, AED (Analogue Enhanced Digital) Records—a label cofounded by Collins and James Endeacott, the latter a former employee of Rough Trade—also offered a 7" EP to the first 400 buyers. Following the August 2013 reissue of High Land, Hard Rain , Frame announced three corresponding live performances, at which

6000-450: Was created, Frame was the only original member of the band involved with the project; Love and future Aztec Camera albums were written and recorded by Frame under the "Aztec Camera" moniker, and session musicians recorded with Frame on a track-by-track basis. Frame explained in August 2014 that he contemplated the conception of Love during a three-year hiatus following the release of Knife . Frame said that he moved even further away from

6080-457: Was epitomized in Spears' highly influential 2007 album Blackout , which under the influence of producer Danja , mixed the sounds of EDM , avant-funk , R&B , dance music , and hip hop . By 2010, pop music impacted by dance music came to be dominant on the charts. Instead of radio setting the trends, it was now the club. At the beginning of the 2010s, Will.i.am stated, "The new bubble

6160-450: Was interested in the concept—Frame agreed to the tour at the time he was first asked. Aztec Camera were primarily a pop group centred on Frame's acoustic guitar work, which featured prominently on their first album High Land, High Rain . Their folk- and jazz -inflected style of pop became more polished on their second album, Knife , with the introduction of electronic synthesizers and R&B elements. R&B grew more prominent on

6240-622: Was possible to get one at two in the morning, and for no other reason"); a cab-ride back to the Mayflower Hotel , where he was staying; an hour of listening to Shabba Ranks ; and then bed. For Frame's final album under the Aztec Camera moniker, and the last original studio recording for the WEA label, Frame worked with renowned production team Langer - Winstanley , who had previously worked with Madness and Elvis Costello . Frestonia

6320-736: Was produced by John Brand and Bernie Clarke for the Rough Trade record label. The album was released in April 1983 and was distributed in different formats on Domino Recording Co. Ltd. in the US (in addition to Sire); WEA and Celluloid in France; Nuevos Medios in Spain; Powderworks in Australia ; MVM Records in Portugal ; and WEA for a general European release. The album was successful, garnering significant critical acclaim, and peaked at number 129 on

6400-473: Was released in 1995 and the Reprise Records label issued it in the US. "Sun" (1996) was the only one song from the album that was released as a single. After the release of Frestonia , Frame finally decided to record under his own name and was no longer a Warner artist. Three Aztec Camera " Best of " compilations were eventually released: The Best of Aztec Camera was released in 1999 by Warner.ESP,

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