157-582: Echo & the Bunnymen are an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1978. The original line-up consisted of vocalist Ian McCulloch , guitarist Will Sergeant and bassist Les Pattinson . By 1980, Pete de Freitas joined as the band's drummer. Their 1980 debut album Crocodiles went into the top 20 of the UK Albums Chart . After releasing their second album Heaven Up Here in 1981,
314-475: A New Year's Eve drug binge in New Orleans, de Freitas announced that he had quit the band. With tour commitments looming, the remaining members hastily recruited former Haircut One Hundred drummer Blair Cunningham as their new drummer, but he did not fit in, and left after their Spring 1986 American tour. Cunningham was replaced by former ABC drummer David Palmer. The group began recording material for
471-510: A PR campaign that proclaimed it "the greatest album ever made" according to McCulloch, 1984's Ocean Rain reached No. 4, and today is widely regarded as the band's landmark album. Single extracts " Silver " (UK No. 30) and " Seven Seas " (UK No. 16) consolidated the album's continued commercial success. In the same year, McCulloch had a minor solo hit with his cover version of the Kurt Weill standard " September Song ". After
628-514: 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
785-516: A compilation album, Songs to Learn & Sing , which made No. 6 in the UK album chart. 1985/86 proved to be the turning point in the group's career. During their regular winter break, drummer Pete de Freitas had moved to America with a loose group of musical colleagues, friends and hangers-on dubbed The Sex Gods, but the other Bunnymen and his family later revealed that de Freitas was suffering from escalating mental health and drug problems, and following
942-539: A cover version of the Doors song " People Are Strange " to The Lost Boys soundtrack, which featured a guest appearance by original Doors keyboard player Ray Manzarek , who also contributed keyboards to a re-recorded version of "Bedbugs and Ballyhoo". "Never Stop" was used in the Alan Bennett film History Boys . Although the album was a significant commercial success, it received mixed reviews from critics, and
1099-493: A flock of seagulls flying across sky in front of them. The photograph was taken on the beach at Porthcawl in South Wales on a day off from recording. According to photographer Brian Griffin, they had to use buckets of fish offal to entice the seagulls to fly through the shot. Manager Bill Drummond and Korova label head, Rob Dickins, reportedly hated the image and Atkins, Griffin and the band had to fight to have it accepted as
1256-519: 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
1413-481: 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
1570-628: 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
1727-533: A full member of the band. The revised lineup performed live on BBC TV in September, presenting two new songs, "The Game" and " Lips Like Sugar ", but by this stage, they were under intense pressure from their label to create what Warners considered to be more commercial material. Will Sergeant later recalled the band's outrage when Warner executive Rob Dickens played them Peter Gabriel 's album So , declaring "I want you to sound like this!" Their fifth studio album,
SECTION 10
#17327728973371884-630: 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
2041-573: 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
2198-587: 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
2355-495: 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
2512-429: 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
2669-554: A montage of the activities of the band members as they prepare for and head to the show. The concert was staged on January 17, 1981, in the striking Victorian-era glass concert hall in the Buxton Pavilion Gardens in Derbyshire before a specially invited audience. Before the show, advertisements had been placed in the music press, and 500 lucky fans who responded were given free passes and a map directing them to
2826-651: A month on a single song, and tensions within the band were being inflamed by McCulloch's increasing alcohol use, and the star treatment he was being accorded. In the United States, the band's best-known songs were "The Killing Moon" and " Lips Like Sugar ". "Bring on the Dancing Horses" is well known as one of the songs on the soundtrack to the John Hughes film Pretty in Pink . The band also contributed
2983-722: A month-long round of dates in the United States beginning in March. April-May saw them playing concerts in Europe and the UK, followed by the second and more extensive leg of their U.S. tour during August-September, concluding with a show at the famed Greek Theater in Los Angeles on September 9. The band then immediately undertook an intensive two-month UK tour, beginning in Dublin on September 15 and concluding at London's Brixton Academy on October 24 (their last concert of 1984). Following
3140-410: 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 ,
3297-572: A motorcycle accident on 14 June 1989. De Freitas was on his way to Liverpool from London to take part in the group's first rehearsal with Burke, when his Ducati motorbike collided with another vehicle on the A51 At Longdon Green in Staffordshire, killing him instantly. He was 27 years old and was survived by his widow and their infant daughter, who was born in 1988. After recruiting new drummer Damon Reece to replace de Freitas,
SECTION 20
#17327728973373454-486: 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
3611-589: 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
3768-459: 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
3925-444: 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),
4082-446: 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
4239-625: 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 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
4396-721: 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
4553-597: A show on November 11 at the Manly Vale Hotel on Sydney's northern beaches. This was recorded, and four tracks from that concert were subsequently included as bonus tracks on the 2003 CD reissue of the second album. Heaven Up Here was recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales during March, and was released in May 1981. Produced by the band and Hugh Jones , it proved a very positive and enjoyable recording experience for
4710-481: 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
4867-477: A stage and full concert facilities, with a capacity of 1,500. Stand Up Central (formerly known as Russell Howard's Stand Up Central ) is a British stand-up comedy television show in front of a live audience at the Electric Ballroom. MTV Brand New for (2011-2018) is a showcase at Electric Ballroom. The Electric Ballroom was a roller disco for a brief period from the late 1970s to
Echo & the Bunnymen - Misplaced Pages Continue
5024-464: 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
5181-529: 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
5338-501: 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
5495-423: 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 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
5652-540: 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
5809-472: 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,
5966-555: 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
6123-411: 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
6280-399: 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
6437-580: Is the Band." Electric Ballroom The Electric Ballroom is a 1,500-capacity performance venue (primarily for rock bands) and indoor market located at 184 Camden High Street in Camden Town , London, England. The Electric Ballroom started as an Irish ballroom in the 1930s, renamed as Electric Ballroom in the summer of 1978 and owned by Bill Fuller, up until his death in 2008, aged 91. It hosts various events. The two-storey building has two dance floors and four bars. The ground floor has
Echo & the Bunnymen - Misplaced Pages Continue
6594-535: 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
6751-524: 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
6908-541: The Crucial Three , a bedroom band which also featured Julian Cope and Pete Wylie . When Wylie left, McCulloch and Cope formed the short-lived A Shallow Madness with drummer Dave Pickett and organist Paul Simpson , during which time such songs as "Read It in Books", "Robert Mitchum", "You Think It's Love" and "Spacehopper" were written by the pair. When McCulloch left the band, A Shallow Madness changed their name to
7065-422: 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
7222-417: 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
7379-454: 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
7536-586: The 1970s, 1980s onwards, as well as modern hip hop and R&B. The Electric Ballroom is the London home for PROGRESS Wrestling , holding events on a regular basis since March 2014. On 15 April 2018, the People's Vote campaign was started there. Transport for London proposed to demolish the Electric Ballroom in order to allow the redevelopment of the Camden Town Underground station , but
7693-467: 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
7850-477: 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
8007-628: 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
SECTION 50
#17327728973378164-617: 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
8321-431: 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
8478-475: The Dancing Horses" and released as their only single of 1986. Echo & the Bunnymen returned to the studio to record more material with a new producer, Gil Norton , but in July, David Palmer left the group and de Freitas expressed his wish to rejoin. The other members were concerned about both his commitment to the band and his drug and mental health problems, so he returned to group as a hired musician rather than
8635-641: The Daz Men or Glisserol and the Fan Extractors. Echo and the Bunnymen was one of them. I thought it was just as stupid as the rest. In November 1978, Echo & the Bunnymen made their debut at Liverpool's Eric's Club , appearing as the opening act for the Teardrop Explodes. The band played one song, a 20-minute version of "Monkeys" which was entitled "I Bagsy Yours" at the time. Echo & the Bunnymen's debut single " The Pictures on My Wall "
8792-594: 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,
8949-512: The Drummers of Burundi . Their only American date that year was a one-off show at New York's Peppermint Lounge on August 24, and their 1982 touring schedule concluded with four UK dates in December. Much of 1982 was taken with the difficult and protracted process of recording of their highly anticipated third album Porcupine , which reunited them with Crocodiles producer Ian Broudie (who
9106-455: 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
9263-471: 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
9420-506: 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
9577-503: 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
SECTION 60
#17327728973379734-476: 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
9891-409: The Rolling Stones , Talking Heads and the Doors . Recordings from the tour emerged as the semi-bootleg On Strike . On 21 June, they performed a headlining set at that year's Glastonbury Festival , where they premiered two new songs from their next album. Ocean Rain proved difficult to follow up, and their only releases in 1985 were the single, " Bring on the Dancing Horses " (UK No. 21), and
10048-588: 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
10205-672: 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
10362-619: The Sound , during which they performed their first European concerts in France, The Netherlands and Germany. The end of the Camo tour was followed by a four-month break, mainly dedicated to the preparation and recording of their second LP. Manager Bill Drummond (later of KLF ) and lighting director Bill Butt launched plans for a one-off promotional concert event as the final date of the Camo tour, which would be professionally filmed and recorded. It
10519-424: The Teardrop Explodes , and McCulloch joined with guitarist Will Sergeant and bass player Les Pattinson to form Echo & the Bunnymen. This early incarnation of the band featured a drum machine , assumed by many to be "Echo", though this has been denied by the band. In the 1982 book Liverpool Explodes! , Will Sergeant explained the origin of the band's name: We had this mate who kept suggesting all these names like
10676-620: The Teardrop Explodes) broke into the Top 20, reaching No. 17, and garnered wide critical acclaim. Eschewing the traditional "pin-up" cover shot, Crocodiles featured an atmospheric cover image, which showed the band posed in a mysterious woodland setting, lit by hidden coloured lights. Designed by Martyn Atkins and photographed by Brian Griffin, it became the first in a coordinated series of elemental-themed album covers by Atkins and Griffin, which spanned their first four LPs, each depicting
10833-676: 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
10990-487: 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
11147-420: 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
11304-527: 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
11461-513: The album proved to be a difficult and protracted process. Early sessions with Gil Norton took place at the famous Cologne studio of German producer Conny Plank , but both band and label were unhappy with the results and these recordings were shelved. They began re-recording material from the Cologne sessions with Laurie Latham in Brussels, but the sessions were grueling, with Latham spending up to
11618-524: The albums Flowers (2001), Siberia (2005), The Fountain (2009) and Meteorites (2014). The Siberia band line up was Ian McCulloch, Will Sergeant, Paul Fleming (keyboards), Simon Finley (drums) and Pete Wilkinson (bass), Hugh Jones produced Siberia after previously engineering early Bunnymen albums. Since August 2009 the group's touring incarnation has comprised McCulloch and Sergeant along with Stephen Brannan (bass), Gordy Goudie (guitar), Nicholas Kilroe (drums) and Jez Wing (keyboards). In 2002,
11775-442: The band agreed to re-record the entire LP, and Drummond brought in noted Indian violinist and composer Shankar to add strings. During this period, tensions within the band had increased dramatically. Bassist Les Pattinson was openly expressing his weariness with the industry, and personal relations among the four deteriorated to the point that they either refused to speak to each other or argued when they did. McCulloch later described
11932-455: The band and was replaced by singer Noel Burke . In 1989, de Freitas was killed in a motorcycle accident. After working together as Electrafixion , McCulloch and Sergeant regrouped with Pattinson in 1997 and returned as Echo & the Bunnymen, before Pattinson's departure in 1998. The band has done some touring and released several albums since the late 1990s to varying degrees of success. Ian McCulloch began his career in 1977, as one third of
12089-408: The band don't even appear clearly until partway through the film. The audio recordings of the four songs featured in the film were also released on the "Shine So Hard" EP, which reached #37 on the UK singles chart, thus becoming the group's first British hit single. In 1982, the film was released as a limited edition of 500 VHS cassettes, redeemable only with a voucher given out to those who had attended
12246-399: The band for several years previously, and a contributor to the 1987 album) was promoted to full member, and after hearing an album by the defunct UK group St Vitus Dance, the Bunnymen offered the lead singer spot to vocalist Noel Burke , who accepted after the band assured him that they did not want "a McCulloch clone". Their plans were thrown into disarray when Pete de Freitas was killed in
12403-468: The band in the week leading up to the concert, and they were given a completely free hand to structure, shoot and edit the project. Smith and Duval shaped the first part of the film around the differing characters of the four band members, filming both the town and the musicians, but using unusual shooting angles and perspectives. This material was then assembled into an impressionistic sequence of seemingly disconnected images, which are gradually revealed to be
12560-539: The band posed at some distance from the camera, in a visually striking natural setting -- a forest ( Crocodiles ), a beach at sunset ( Heaven Up Here ), a frozen waterfall in Iceland ( Porcupine ) and a subterranean river ( Ocean Rain ). It would not be until their fifth, self-titled album that the band employed a traditional group portrait. The band embarked on their first major concert tour between September and December 1980 to promote Crocodiles , supported by London band
12717-475: The band taking the stage 30 minutes after the scheduled start time. The performance was filmed by Smith, Duval and cameraman Mike Tomlinson, with multitrack audio recorded on the Manor Mobile studio by Peter Woods. The footage captures the band at the height of their early success, and documents both their musical prowess as a live act and the impressive staging and lighting designed by Bill Butt. The set list
12874-407: The band's cult status was followed by mainstream success in the UK in 1983 when they scored a UK Top 10 hit with " The Cutter ", and the album which the song came from, Porcupine , hit number 2 in the UK. Ocean Rain (1984), continued the band's UK chart success with its lead single " The Killing Moon " entering into the top 10. After they released a self-titled album in 1987, McCulloch left
13031-478: The band's mood at this time as "horrible", and de Freitas stated that, in stark contrast to the quick and confident making of Heaven Up Here , he felt that "we had to drag it out of ourselves" with Porcupine . Despite these impediments, the re-recording went relatively smoothly, and the sessions ultimately produced their UK chart breakthrough. Released in early 1983, the more radio-friendly " The Cutter ", became their first top 10 single, climbing to No. 8, while
13188-476: The band, and became an even bigger critical and commercial success, reaching the UK Top Ten (No. 10), although " A Promise ", the sole single lifted from the album, only reached UK No. 49. The cover image continued the elemental theme of Crocodiles , and depicted the group standing on a beach, with their backs to the camera, looking out to sea, silhouetted against a bank of storm clouds at sunset, with
13345-470: The band, but his October 12 live debut with them at London's Electric Ballroom was less than auspicious. Supporting hugely popular ska bands Madness and Bad Manners , the Bunnymen proved an uncomfortable fit, and they were booed off after just two songs. " Rescue " (produced by Ian Broudie ), the lead single from Crocodiles , reached No. 62 on the UK singles chart but the album (co-produced by manager Bill Drummond and his business partner David Balfe of
13502-585: 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
13659-461: 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
13816-597: The concert, and copies found their way onto the second-hand market. Beginning in April 1981, the band commenced another round of touring to promote the forthcoming album. This included their first American dates in New York, Toronto, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. After another round of shows in the UK and Europe mid-year, they returned to America for more shows during October, and in November they made their only visit to Australia, including
13973-484: The cover shot. After another break over the winter, the band played three UK dates in April 1982. In June, they achieved their first top 20 UK hit single with " The Back of Love " (No. 19). In July, they began a short round of festival appearances and headlining concerts in Britain and Europe, including an appearance at the first WOMAD festival, where they were joined onstage for the song "All My Colours (Zimbo)" by
14130-424: 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
14287-455: 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
14444-460: 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,"
14601-498: The early 1980s. By 1990, the building had an indoor market on weekends with about fifty stalls, selling a variety of fashion-, lifestyle - and music -related goods. The market closed at short notice in 2015, resulting in unemployment for many staff and traders. The Friday club night is Sin City, playing rock and alternative genres. The Friday club was formerly goth night Full Tilt. On Saturday, "Shake" plays mostly pop and dance from
14758-407: 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
14915-519: 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
15072-581: 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
15229-454: The film would not be distributed commercially unless it was directed by a union member. Butt took over as producer, and on the recommendation of their mutual friend, Patrick Duval, Butt engaged novice filmmaker John Smith , who had earned a union ticket for a film he had directed while at university. After extensive consultation with their clients, Smith and Duval were "embedded" in Buxton with
15386-498: 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
15543-455: 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
15700-513: 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
15857-521: The group now gaining wider attention, they were invited to record a four-song set for the BBC'S John Peel Show on August 22, at which time they were still using a drum machine. This was the first of six live sets they would cut for the Peel show between 1979 and 1983. By the time of their debut album, 1980's Crocodiles (July 1980), the drum machine had been replaced by Trinidad-born Pete de Freitas . Unlike
16014-475: The group received the Q Inspiration award. The award is for inspiring "new generations of musicians, songs and music lovers in general." The band were said to be worthy winners as they have done much to promote the Mersey music scene. In a later interview for Magnet magazine, McCulloch said "It validates everything that we've tried to achieve—cool, great timeless music. It's not like an inspiration award affecting
16171-458: 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
16328-467: 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
16485-517: 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
16642-446: 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
16799-410: 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
16956-476: 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
17113-674: 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,
17270-609: 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
17427-479: 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
17584-435: 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
17741-401: 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
17898-443: The music press, with Melody Maker denouncing it as "a rancid effort". The end of the original Echo & The Bunnymen came in March 1988. Following a Japanese tour, McCulloch announced that the band was breaking up. He hastily departed for the UK to see his father, who had just suffered two heart attacks, but he died before McCulloch arrived. Months of speculation finally ended in September 1988 when McCulloch officially informed
18055-565: The name says it all really doesn't it? No, that's not fair. It wasn't his fault, it was Will and Pete who were the berks really. But no, I thought it was disgraceful and after that I suppose it was quite surprising that I continued working with Will after that. I'm glad I did though. Johnny Marr called them Echo and the Bogusmen when that happened. Meanwhile, McCulloch released his well-received debut solo album Candleland in September 1989, shortly after de Freitas' death. His follow-up solo album
18212-530: The new album with Broudie and producer Clive Langer but they were unhappy with the results and the recordings were shelved. They then recorded with Laurie Latham , who was chosen by McCulloch because he had been impressed by Latham's work on the Stranglers ' single " Skin Deep ". Three tracks from these sessions made their way onto the next album, including the song "Jimmy Brown", which was re-titled "Bring on
18369-401: The new five-piece Bunnymen recorded the psychedelic-tinged Reverberation in 1990 with renowned former Beatles engineer and producer Geoff Emerick . The album did not generate much interest among fans or critics, it sold poorly, and the band was dropped by Warner Bros. In a 2003 interview, McCulloch said of his replacement with Burke: I think it's pretty obvious what I think. Noel Burke...
18526-465: 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
18683-608: 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
18840-510: The other band members, who were from working class Liverpool families, de Freitas was considered "posh" - he came from an affluent background, grew up in the south of England, and attended an elite private school. Despite his different background, the drummer's affable and outgoing manner was a welcome addition for his famously fractious bandmates. De Freitas met the trio at their September 15, 1979 gig at Eric's in Liverpool and immediately joined
18997-644: The other members that he was leaving the band, but Sergeant told McCulloch that he, Pattinson and de Freitas would continue working together. McCulloch departed, and later began work on his first solo album Candleland . Following an abortive attempt to record with singers Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson of the B-52s , the group advertised for a new lead singer. Former Bourgie Bourgie singer Paul Quinn and former Colenso Parade singer Oscar Askin, both auditioned but ultimately turned down offers to take over from McCulloch. Keyboardist Jake Brockman (a touring member of
19154-590: The parent album Porcupine (Feb. 1983), hit No. 2 in the album chart. Now firmly established as a chart act, further hits followed with a one-off single, the dance-oriented " Never Stop " (No. 15), and the epic " The Killing Moon ", a preview from the new album featuring a dramatic McCulloch vocal, which became the band's second UK top 10 single at No. 9. The band kicked off a hectic year of touring in 1984 with their first dates in Japan, in January, followed by
19311-687: The past, it's affecting the current music." 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, 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
19468-547: The planning application for the redevelopment was rejected by Camden London Borough Council in 2004. A revised proposal from Transport for London in 2005 to demolish the whole block including the Ballroom, Buck Street Market and the Dr Martens store was rejected by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott . In 2007 the government declared the Electric Ballroom a dilapidated building, a new argument which allows planning for
19625-471: 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
19782-653: 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
19939-457: The release of Ocean Rain , manager Bill Drummond announced that the band was taking a year off to write material for the next album, but at the end of 1984 they replaced him, reportedly because they were unhappy that the band wasn't making enough money. Drummond was succeeded by Duran Duran tour manager Mick Hancock. Echo & the Bunnymen resumed work with a tour of Scandinavia in April 1985, performing cover versions of songs from Television ,
20096-400: 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
20253-475: 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
20410-522: 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
20567-555: The second half of the 1970s, punk rock reacted by producing stripped-down, energetic social and political critiques. Punk 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
20724-405: The secret location (called "Gomorrah" in the advertisement), which also advised "BE PREPARED: THIS IS AN ATLAS ADVENTURE". For an additional fee of £5, coach transport was provided for fans from London, Liverpool and other cities. Although inclement winter weather complicated the rehearsals, causing transport headaches for the band, as well as for their fans, the concert went ahead as planned, with
20881-403: The self-titled Echo & the Bunnymen (1987), was recorded with Palmer, but when de Freitas returned in late 1986, it was largely re-recorded. Released in mid-1987, the record sold well (UK No. 4), and was a small American hit, their only LP to have significant sales there. It is also significant as the final album to be recorded with the original lineup. Like Porcupine , the making of
21038-546: 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
21195-413: 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
21352-615: 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
21509-507: The trio resurrected the Echo & the Bunnymen name and released the album Evergreen (1997), which reached the UK Top 10. Immediately before the release of the band's next album What Are You Going to Do with Your Life? (1999), Les Pattinson quit to take care of his mother. McCulloch and Sergeant have continued to tour and record as Echo & the Bunnymen, touring repeatedly and releasing
21666-409: 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
21823-536: 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
21980-533: 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
22137-404: 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
22294-582: 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
22451-404: Was Mysterio in 1992. After two more unsuccessful singles, which were released independently, the Bunnymen disbanded in 1993. In 1994, McCulloch and Sergeant began working together again under the name Electrafixion ; in 1997, Pattinson rejoined the duo, meaning the three surviving members of the original Bunnymen line-up were now working together again. Rather than continue as Electrafixion,
22608-628: 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 " and " Kon-Tiki ", 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
22765-473: 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
22922-517: Was also Sergeant's housemate at the time). Several members also undertook outside projects during the year. Pete de Freitas produced and played drums on Liverpool band the Wild Swans ' debut single "Revolutionary Spirit", and lead guitarist Will Sergeant recorded a solo album of instrumental music titled Themes for 'Grind' (1982). The original version of Porcupine was rejected by Warner Bros as "too uncommercial", so (over Sergeant's objections)
23079-424: 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
23236-501: Was disliked by the band, who were sharply critical of the mixing and production. The group jointly headlined an American tour with New Order in August-September 1987, followed by a UK tour in the northern autumn. After a winter break they undertook another round of touring in the U.S. and the UK, to general acclaim, but the March 1988 single release of their cover of the Doors' "People Are Strange" drew withering reviews from
23393-408: Was drawn mainly from Crocodiles , plus previews of several tracks from the upcoming second album. The finished 33-minute short film combined Smith and Duval's opening montage with dynamic footage of four songs from the show. Titled Shine So Hard: An Atlas Adventure , it was given a limited UK cinema release, but Warner executives were reportedly dismayed by its avant-garde structure and the fact that
23550-575: 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
23707-407: Was primarily intended to provide material for the group's first music video, but Drummond and Butt's vision went well beyond the conventional three-minute pop-rock promotional clip, and it reflected their desire to capture Echo & the Bunnymen's live performance during this crucial breakthrough phase of their career. Butt was slated to direct, but British film union regulations at the time meant that
23864-507: Was released on Bill Drummond & David Balfe 's Zoo Records in May 1979, the B-side being "Read It in Books" (also recorded by the Teardrop Explodes approximately six months later as the B-side of their final Zoo Records single "Treason"). Though credited as a McCulloch/Cope collaboration, McCulloch has denied on more than one occasion that Cope had any involvement with its writing. With
24021-526: 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
24178-614: 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,
24335-439: 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,
24492-430: 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
24649-455: 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 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
#336663