139-571: The Hot Space Tour was the ninth headlining concert tour by the British rock band Queen in support of their 1982 album Hot Space . The tour started on the 9th of April in Gothenburg, Sweden and ended, after sixty-nine concerts, in Tokorozawa, Japan on the 3rd of November. The tour saw many changes to Queen's show. The tour was the first in which the band used a keyboardist, playing in
278-667: A blues jam, with Brian and Van Halen trading licks". "[Not as] structured", the song "does carry a nice, bluesy swagger". During this song, "Edward tortures his top string to its audible death and winds up quite naturally on the remaining five". The song "received its first live performance on 7 December 1990 at the Astoria Theatre, when Brian guest-starred on guitar for the last four minutes of The Cross ' Fan Club gig ....[and got] one additional airing on 7 July 2001 at [the Auditorium Stravinksi ] as part of
417-514: 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
556-519: 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
695-481: 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
834-628: 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
973-630: 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
1112-543: A little demo I'd done on acoustic guitar and made a little demo tape of how I wanted it to be and they said 'Great, that sounds fine, let's try. ' " Recorded on 21 and 22 April 1983 at the Record Plant Studios , Los Angeles, California, the mini-album was released in October that same year. The record consists of three songs: "Star Fleet", "Let Me Out", and "Blues Breaker". The album name apparently comes from
1251-573: 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
1390-587: 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
1529-495: 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
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#17327795767071668-429: 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
1807-410: 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 ,
1946-486: 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
2085-534: 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
2224-433: A platform for Van Halen's soloing skills with ... Star Fleet ". The "strongest" track, the song "[carries] both the energy and full flavor of an early Queen work". "Van Halen's and May's guitar solos bounce off one another like playful lions". This "[bouncing] off one another" is intended, as May explained: "I wanted to play in a sympathetic way to him, to supply the great rhythms that he could play to. I wanted to be
2363-459: 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
2502-444: 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),
2641-407: A rather good piece of music! ' " "If [composer] Paul [Bliss] hadn't written a very catchy song as the theme tune for that kid's TV science fiction drama series, things would have been different," said May. "The signature tune began to stick in my head, and I could hear my own arrangement of the tune developing in my mind. But how to record it?" There was a seven-month period between when May watched
2780-446: 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
2919-625: 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
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#17327795767073058-721: 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
3197-481: 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
3336-464: 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
3475-529: 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
3614-574: A vinyl single, as well as other collector's items." As part of the marketing for the re-release, May uploaded two videos to his YouTube channels, one promoting the preorder, another of the digital version of "Star Fleet". At least two black long sleeve t-shirts with a yellow Star Fleet star was manufactured, one of which May owned and wore on multiple occasions throughout the 1980s. In November or December 1983 , May wore his shirt during an interview about Star Fleet Project with The Saturday Show 's Scott G. Reilly, and had another shirt in his lap. There
3753-484: A way that makes [the album] worth purchasing." "[T]here is so much spirited byplay among ... May and ... Van Halen ... Alan Gratzer ... Phil Chen and ... Fred Mandel that [the mini-album] was just too good to be left sitting in the can." Star Fleet Project was voted Best Spontaneous Recording by Hope College in 1984. In a televised interview with Roger Taylor, also in 1984, May's "interest in [Star Fleet had become] quite well known", to
3892-501: 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
4031-423: 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
4170-540: 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
4309-472: 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,
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4448-515: Is high-octane rockist instrumentals, instantly Queenish, and not unlike Flash with added fretboard pyrotechnics". The tapes were not intended to be released and received minimal mixing. " Star Fleet Project was called a 'mini-album' by [May] because he thought it ... too short to be a proper album, but too long to be even an EP single". The EP was re-released along with a collection of other session recordings and alternate takes titled Star Fleet Sessions on 14 July 2023. The idea for
4587-618: 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
4726-411: 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
4865-399: 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
5004-528: Is the Band." Star Fleet Project Star Fleet Project is a solo project of Brian May , Queen 's guitarist, and a mini-album of the same name. Released as the work of Brian May + Friends, the album features May, guitarist Eddie Van Halen , drummer Alan Gratzer (then of REO Speedwagon ), Phil Chen (session bassist who played with Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart ), and Fred Mandel (keyboard player for Alice Cooper and additional keyboard player on Queen's Hot Space Tour and The Works ). "[T]he result
5143-535: 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
5282-524: 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
5421-568: The Montreux Jazz Festival ), with Brian on guitars and vocals, Jon Clearly on piano, Chris Spedding on guitar, John Hatton on bass, Bernie Dresel on drums, and Emily [May], [Jim May], and Anita [Dobson] providing backing vocals." "Queen fans may enjoy the piano blues 'Let Me Out' best, as it sounds like it would have fit right in on News of the World . I can imagine Freddie putting his spin on it quite easily. Brian takes
5560-799: The Royal Albert Hall in London, due to the venue not being able to cope with the weight of the band's light rig. The second were two rescheduled concerts in England. The concert in Leeds was originally scheduled to take place at Old Trafford in Manchester and the Milton Keynes concert was supposed to take place at Arsenal Stadium in London. The concerts were moved due to potential noise complaints from local residents. A DVD documenting
5699-422: 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
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5838-417: 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
5977-446: The " Star Fleet Project " with various other artists, Roger Taylor worked on his solo album " Strange Frontier ", and Freddie Mercury would work on his debut solo album " Mr. Bad Guy ", which would feature the touring keyboardist Fred Mandel . He would be succeeded by Spike Edney on The Works Tour. Queen Additional musicians Rock music Rock is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll " in
6116-454: 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
6255-467: 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
6394-477: 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
6533-628: 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
6672-617: 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
6811-431: 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
6950-594: 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,
7089-507: 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
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#17327795767077228-471: 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
7367-506: 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
7506-543: The Light and Another World . "I'm going to do Star Fleet , which is the one with Eddie Van Halen, after that." Following Van Halen's death on 6 October 2020, May stated that "[a]t some point it would be lovely to revisit [ Star Fleet Project ] in depth, but at the moment I'm not. It doesn't feel right now." On the order of re-releases, May explained, "I didn't want to do [ Star Fleet ] first, because I wanted to put my proper solo album out first .... I'll do [ Back to
7645-535: The Light ] first, Another World and then the third one will be Star Fleet ." Another World was re-released on 22 April 2022. As of late November 2022, the re-release process had begun, with May stating that he had begun " 'working on the Star Fleet box set, which is number 3 in the Brian May Gold Series, and probably to be released halfway into next year. ' " May additionally admitted, "I
7784-503: 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
7923-476: 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
8062-588: 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
8201-672: 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
8340-676: 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
8479-619: 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
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#17327795767078618-534: 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
8757-542: The United States, along with Paul Rodgers , on the Queen + Paul Rodgers Tour . Queen dropped several popular songs on stage after this tour, including the fast We Will Rock You, Action This Day, Play The Game, Put Out The Fire, Save Me, Get Down Make Love, Calling All Girls, Fat Bottomed Girls, Body Language and Teo Torriatte . After this tour, Queen would take a nearly two-year long break from touring, where they recorded " The Works ". During this downtime, Brian May worked on
8896-751: 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
9035-527: 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
9174-543: The album came from May's son Jimmy, a fan of Star Fleet , the English title of Japanese sci-fi puppet TV show X-Bomber . The show, which aired on Saturday mornings, "was compulsive regular viewing for [May] and his 4-year-old son Jimmy ... inspiring [May]'s attachment to its title song". "It was my little boy who really got me keen on it. He said, 'Daddy, Daddy, get up, it's time for Star Fleet!' I had to rush out of bed and tumble downstairs and we used to watch it. I
9313-491: The attacks and counter-attacks of May and Van Halen", "a masterpiece ... for its pure spontaneity", is a "long blues jam (edited together from several recorded that day), with no lyrics or vocals .... The liner notes dedicate this piece to E. C. ( Eric Clapton ), and that's where the name comes from." "[W]hen we started ... the Blues Breaker track, I think we kind of had Eric Clapton in our minds and
9452-561: The background. For the European leg of the tour, they used Morgan Fisher . Fisher is best known for having been a member of Mott the Hoople in the 1970s. Queen were the opening act for Mott the Hoople's US Tour of 1974, so the band already had close connections with Fisher prior to the tour. Another connection which Fisher had with the band was through a short-lived progressive rock band called Morgan , which he formed with Tim Staffell , who
9591-868: The band's 5 June 1982 concert at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes was released in 2004 as Queen on Fire – Live at the Bowl . The DVD Extras contained video clips and audio clips recorded in Austria and Japan. The Japanese clips were recorded in Tokorozawa on the 3rd of November, 1982. They were released in Japan in 1983 simply as "Queen: Live in Japan", although the footage was trimmed down to 60 minutes. The Hot Space Tour marked Queen's last concerts in North America to feature Freddie Mercury and John Deacon . Brian May and Roger Taylor returned to perform in
9730-585: 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
9869-461: 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
10008-424: 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
10147-455: 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
10286-460: 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,"
10425-462: 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
10564-519: 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
10703-518: 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
10842-498: 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
10981-412: The first solo, but next time he says 'Help me, Edward!' and it's Van Halen playing the blues .... Brian and [Edward] alternate, and then [Edward] blazes the fretboard shredder style." The song "wouldn't have sounded out of place on a Queen album ... [and] there are ... some Queen-esque vocal harmonies on the chorus". "Blues Breaker", "a 13-minute piece of improvisation highlighted by
11120-455: 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
11259-513: 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
11398-640: The former would appear on the Japanese leg, and the latter would be re-introduced in September. Sheer Heart Attack would appear at least once on the North American leg of the tour, with Liar rumoured to have a performance in August. Queen toured Europe, North America, and Japan throughout 1982. Several alterations were made to the touring schedule. The first being the cancellation of a planned concert at
11537-458: 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
11676-467: 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
11815-517: 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
11954-446: 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
12093-410: 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
12232-476: 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
12371-674: 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,
12510-609: 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
12649-479: 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
12788-435: 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
12927-401: 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
13066-428: The mini-album as a whole, Van Halen said: That was just a get-together jam. [May] invited me down to ... Record Plant and we played .... After we played, he called me up about four months later and asked what I thought about putting the stuff out. And I said, "Send me the tape, let me hear it first," because I didn't remember how it went. He did and said, "Sure, what the hell." It reeks of fun. The project
13205-648: The mini-album was favorable, as Joe Kleon wrote in Scene magazine: "[May] has appeared in many projects, including the highly-acclaimed 'Star Fleet Project' released in 1983 with [Edward] Van Halen." Referencing Star Fleet Project in comparison to the Ultima Thule Mix of May's song New Horizons , Rolling Stone journalist Kory Grow wrote that "May's first-ever solo recording was also a tribute to space travel." In late 2021, May stated that Star Fleet Project would be re-released following re-releases of Back to
13344-555: The mistakes left in. ' " "Van Halen throws in some tapping and rapid runs as the track progresses whilst May ... keeps it simple but effective .... Fred Mandel gets a piano solo spot ... before the track double-times for the final bars." On the types of guitarists he liked at the time, May told Dave Heffernan in an interview for RTE : "I prefer the kind of people like Jeff Beck or, I mean still Clapton and still Hendrix , I'm very ... maybe call me old-fashioned, I don't know, but also say, Edward Van Halen." On
13483-465: 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
13622-608: 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
13761-745: The people that Clapton would revere like [B.B.] King , Muddy Waters ; it was the power of the blues which made us gel. I remember [Edward] saying, 'You know, you got me to play today in a way that I haven't played for years.' Just simple and from the heart and with that kind of feeling." Heavy metal magazine Kerrang! said that the song "has something epic, as if every one of the players touched deep into [the] collective music lexicon, and promptly replied to his previous speaker." This song and "Let Me Out" were more spontaneous than "Star Fleet", with May showing off his signature sound and Van Halen using his unique tapping technique to great effect. "May sent ... 'Blues Breaker' to Eric Clapton, who reportedly found
13900-428: The perfect rhythm guitarist, and I grew up as a rhythm guitarist, so that's natural to me. But when we were trading solos ... we were feeding off each other .... We'd never played together before, and yet the chemistry is there. It was as spontaneous as anything could be". "Edward played the solo on 'Star Fleet' three times. Each time it was incredible. Each time it was different". Prior to beginning work on
14039-412: The point where it was openly referenced in a televised interview as an introduction to the 'Star Fleet' music video. The titular song "lived on – at the conclusion of ' One Vision ' on the 1986 Magic tour , [Queen] launched into the ascending false conclusion [of 'Star Fleet'] before [going] into ' Tie Your Mother Down '." This occurred at Råsundastadion and Wembley . By 1993, general perception of
14178-529: The project, May "attempted to get in touch with the song's writer, British keyboardist Paul Bliss, but was unsuccessful until after the Star Fleet Project was completed." Of this attempted contact, May said, "I tried to get in touch with the guy who had written the song, Paul Bliss, and couldn't at the time. So I pressed on and did some arrangement around a couple of verses and wrote extra middle bit for it. Later I got in touch with him, and he said it
14317-471: 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
14456-653: 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
14595-448: 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
14734-475: 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
14873-522: 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
15012-426: The second "Blues Breaker". In 1993, the songs were re-issued as tracks 6–8 of the Japanese mini-album Resurrection . Although the album did not do well initially —by the end of the year it reached No. 35 in the UK and No. 125 in the US, with the "Star Fleet" single being counted as "a non-starter at 65" that "received no daytime radio airplay", individuals took a liking to the mini-LP—so much so that by 1984, it
15151-555: 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
15290-407: The sessions." On 1 June 2023, May announced the official re-released was available for preorder, and would be released worldwide on 14 July 2023, days before his 76th birthday. The digital single "Star Fleet" was released on 1 June 2023. The 14 July release, titled Star Fleet Sessions , includes "a spectacular 23-track CD filled with previously unreleased material. Containing 2 CDs, 1 vinyl LP, and
15429-533: The show briefly in May, before making a permanent return in July, and "Calling All Girls" would be introduced in July as well. "Life Is Real" would be heard at only a few concerts in August, and "Put Out The Fire" would be briefly introduced to the show in August, before permanently returning in September. "The Hero", "Sheer Heart Attack" and most of the fast version of "We Will Rock You" were dropped from July onwards, although
15568-521: The show with his son and the mini-LP's recording. "We were all in a little bit of downtime in our own projects. Queen was in a bit of a hiatus, and I think Van Halen weren't doing too much and my neighbour [in Los Angeles] Alan Gratzer from R.E.O. [Speedwagon] wasn't doing much and we got together". "I just played [the theme tune] to them, and they were all people who I liked as friends and people who I admired as musicians, and I made
15707-546: 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
15846-413: 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
15985-461: The song to be not terribly bluesy. [Edward Van Halen] was greatly disappointed." More than finding the song "not terribly bluesy", Clapton took insult from the song, finding it horrible. "May was on the defensive when he talked about 'Bluesbreaker', a lengthy jam dedicated to Eric Clapton, which took up all of side two: 'It seemed very indulgent putting out a long jam, but having listened to it, I think it's worthwhile ... it's rock blues with all
16124-615: 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
16263-404: The title track: "Because one song was called 'Star Fleet', [May] dubbed the jam session ... Star Fleet Project". " Star Fleet ", May's hard-rock arrangement of the Star Fleet theme tune with "extended soloing", "soars on more sheer guitar power as the piece is translated into interstellar heavy metal", with heavy emphasis on May's and Van Halen's guitar work, as May "intended to provide
16402-409: 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
16541-536: 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
16680-533: 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
16819-404: 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
16958-525: The year. Most songs from the Hot Space album would be played on this tour, with "Action This Day" and " Under Pressure " being performed at every single show. Since the album itself was released on 21 May (the first night in Munich), fans at shows from the start of the tour until then would have been unfamiliar with the songs "Staying Power", "Back Chat" and "Action This Day". "Body Language" was introduced to
17097-582: 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
17236-681: 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
17375-471: Was a Star Fleet-themed quiz as part of the day's program, the winner had to know Dai-X's name to win a copy of the mini-album, a Star Fleet video cassette tape, and a Star Fleet shirt. With the re-release of Star Fleet Project in 2023, new merchandise was produced and sold, some of it drawing from previous merchandise, such as a cassette tape of the project, long-sleeve shirt, and multiple vinyl records, as well as original designs for tee shirts—such as one with
17514-473: 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
17653-451: Was a pity that I couldn't find him in the early days because he's got some more verse in the middle – which I'm dying to hear – but it was too late for the project. My song does follow his musical theme, and I used the verse he wrote." Apparently "Brian sent a signed copy of the finished [mini-album] to ... Bliss, with a message thanking him for his composition". "Let Me Out", "an old song of [May's] which found new life", "turns into
17792-424: 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
17931-575: 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
18070-433: Was never fond of the original mix of 'Star Fleet', the single, so we cleaned that up. Now, EVH's sound is larger than life. You'll hear the development of Eddie's solo, which I always thought was one of the greatest things he did ... a real immortal classic of Ed Van Halen pieces." This re-release is set to include "'every take of every song,' along with conversations, outtakes and musical experimentation recorded during
18209-459: Was originally released on Halloween , 31 October 1983, and was later re-released in November of that year. Capitol released "[a] shorter edit of 'Starfleet' ... [a] move [which] proved to be a disaster". Star Fleet Project was released on two CD formats. It was first re-issued as part of May's " Back to the Light " single, in two CDs: the first featured "Star Fleet" and "Let Me Out",
18348-517: Was reported that the album was "already a cult guitar favorite. Where solo efforts often tend to be politely applauded and then forgotten as an artist's 'indulgence', the raw power of this album has given it instant, unanticipated acceptance .... [May admitted:] 'I must contest I still enjoy it — I still put it on the record player and like what I hear. ' " "[O]n this album May is able to let loose and allow his blues influences to show through .... [T]he expert musicianship shows through in such
18487-526: 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
18626-614: 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,
18765-504: Was the bass guitarist and lead vocalist for the pre-Queen band Smile . Unlike most tours, in which the band would normally only need a few nights to become comfortable with a setlist, it would take more than a month during the start of the tour. All of the shows in April are unique as the band are undergoing an experimental period, before finally achieving an optimal setlist outline by May. The band would still continue to experiment throughout
18904-499: 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,
19043-430: 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
19182-455: 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
19321-458: Was very keen on the music and a couple of verses at the end, and I thought, 'One day I should do something because it would be great.' And I could hear it buzzing around in my head the way I wanted to do it." "[M]y little boy had been watching this science fiction series and I always thought that the theme tune for it would be a great vehicle for all-out guitar playing". "And [Jim] said, 'Daddy, you should play that!', and I thought, 'Actually, that's
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