206-441: Superunknown is the fourth studio album by American rock band Soundgarden , released on March 8, 1994, through A&M Records . Produced by Michael Beinhorn and the band themselves, Soundgarden began work on the album after touring in support of their previous album, Badmotorfinger (1991). Superunknown retained the heaviness of the band's earlier releases while displaying a more diverse range of influences. Superunknown
412-467: A telegram that read: "Funny how some things that start spontaneously end that way. Eat a peach, Neil." In 1976, Young performed with Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and numerous other rock musicians in the high-profile all-star concert The Last Waltz , the final performance by The Band . The release of Martin Scorsese 's movie of the concert was delayed while Scorsese unwillingly re-edited it to obscure
618-783: A "sleepy little place." Young contracted polio in the late summer of 1951 during the last major outbreak of the disease in Ontario, and as a result, became partially paralyzed on his left side. After the conclusion of his hospitalization, the Young family wintered in Florida because they believed its mild weather would help Neil's convalescence. During that period, Young briefly attended Faulkner Elementary School in New Smyrna Beach, Florida . In 1952, upon returning to Canada, Young moved from Omemee to Pickering (1956) and then lived for
824-619: A Canadian Top 40 hit with Young's "Flying on the Ground is Wrong", which was Young's first major success as a songwriter. In 1965, Young toured Canada as a solo artist. In 1966, while in Toronto, he joined the Rick James -fronted Mynah Birds . The band managed to secure a record deal with the Motown label, but as their first album was being recorded, James was arrested for being AWOL from
1030-527: A Maid " was inspired by his relationship with actress Carrie Snodgress . " Heart of Gold " was released as the first single from Harvest , the only No. 1 hit in his career. "Old Man" was also popular, reaching No. 31 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, marking Young's third and final appearance in the chart's Top 40 as a solo artist. The album's recording had been almost accidental. Its mainstream success caught Young off guard, and his first instinct
1236-525: A Time . Over four years, Young would spend US$ 3,000,000 of his own money on production (US$ 14,014,286 in 2023 dollars ). This also marked the beginning of his brief collaboration with the art punk band Devo , whose members appeared in the film. Young set out in 1978 on the lengthy Rust Never Sleeps tour, in which he played a wealth of new material. Each concert was divided into a solo acoustic set and an electric set with Crazy Horse. The electric sets, featuring an abrasive style of playing, were influenced by
1442-571: A baritone ukulele – everything but a guitar." Young and his mother settled into the working-class area of Fort Rouge, Winnipeg , where he enrolled at Earl Grey Junior High School. It was there that he formed his first band, the Jades, and met Ken Koblun . While attending Kelvin High School in Winnipeg, he played in several instrumental rock bands, eventually dropping out of school in favor of
1648-520: A bird flew into a window of his house. He found the severely injured animal and killed it, hitting it with a brick to end its suffering. The video clip of the song "Spoonman" is notable for featuring a performance by Artis the Spoonman , a street entertainer in Seattle . The title of the song is credited to bassist Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam . While on the set of the movie Singles , Ament produced
1854-429: A box, and I wanted to establish that. — Neil Young The 1982 album Trans , which incorporated vocoders , synthesizers, and electronic beats, was Young's first for the new label Geffen Records (distributed at the time by Warner Bros. Records , whose parent Warner Music Group owns most of Young's solo and band catalog) and represented a distinct stylistic departure. Young later revealed that an inspiration for
2060-541: A break in the middle of recording to open for Neil Young on a ten-day tour of the United States. The band then brought in Brendan O'Brien to mix the album, as Beinhorn felt the band needed "a fresh pair of ears"; O'Brien had come recommended by Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard . Thayil called the mixing process "very painless", and bassist Ben Shepherd said it was "the fastest part of the record". Footage of
2266-514: 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
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#17328021495342472-497: A chance encounter in traffic on Sunset Boulevard . Along with Dewey Martin , they formed Buffalo Springfield . A mixture of folk, country, psychedelia , and rock, lent a hard edge by the twin lead guitars of Stills and Young, made Buffalo Springfield a critical success, and their first record Buffalo Springfield (1966) sold well after Stills' topical song " For What It's Worth " became a hit, aided by Young's melodic harmonics played on electric guitar. According to Rolling Stone ,
2678-470: A distorted photograph of the band members, photographed by Kevin Westenberg, above a black and white upside-down burning forest. Concerning the artwork, Cornell said, " Superunknown relates to birth in a way ... Being born or even dying—getting flushed into something that you know nothing about. The hardest thing is to nail down a visual image to put on a title like that. The first thing we thought of
2884-447: A divorce, which was granted in 1960. She moved back to Winnipeg with Neil joining her there, while his brother, Bob, stayed with their father in Toronto. During the mid-1950s, Young listened to rock 'n roll , rockabilly , doo-wop , R&B , country , and western pop. He idolized Elvis Presley and later referred to him in a number of his songs. Other early musical influences included Link Wray , Lonnie Mack , Jimmy Gilmer and
3090-680: A double album of songs culled from the band's performances at multiple venues as well as from sessions at a local recording studio. The double album was part of the Neil Young Archives project positioned within the Official Bootleg Series, titled High Flyin'. Comes a Time (October 2, 1978), Young's first entirely new solo recording since the mid-1970s, marked a return to the commercially accessible, Nashville-inspired sound of Harvest while also featuring contributions from Larson and Crazy Horse. The album also marked
3296-656: A few shows in northern Ontario. After leaving the Squires, Young worked folk clubs in Winnipeg, where he first met Joni Mitchell . Mitchell recalls Young as having been highly influenced by Bob Dylan at the time. Young said Phil Ochs was "a big influence on me," telling a radio station in 1969 that Ochs was "on the same level with Dylan in my eyes." Here he wrote some of his earliest and most enduring folk songs such as " Sugar Mountain ", about lost youth. Mitchell wrote " The Circle Game " in response. The Winnipeg band The Guess Who (with Randy Bachman as lead guitarist) had
3502-519: 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
3708-481: 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
3914-628: 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
4120-402: A genuine concert recording featuring old and new material) captured the two sides of the concerts, with solo acoustic songs on side A, and fierce, uptempo, electric songs on side B. A movie version of the concerts, also called Rust Never Sleeps (1979), was directed by Young under the pseudonym "Bernard Shakey". Young worked with rock artist Jim Evans to create the poster art for the film, using
4326-630: 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
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#17328021495344532-529: A light-hearted song called "Bing Bing Goes to Church" were recorded at album rehearsals but were presumably not recorded during the Superunknown recording sessions. Both were released in 2014 on the 20th anniversary Super Deluxe edition. Shipments figures based on certification alone. Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. Rock music Rock is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll " in
4738-400: A list of song titles for the fictional band featured in the movie. Cornell took it as a challenge to write songs for the film using those titles, and "Spoonman" was one of them. An acoustic demo version of the song appears in the movie. Cornell said that the song is about "the paradox of who [Artis] is and what people perceive him as". The album's cover art (known as the 'Screaming Elf') is
4944-548: A lot more time working on recording the songs. After two albums with producer Terry Date , the band decided to seek another collaborator, as guitarist Kim Thayil said, "We just thought we'd go for a change." Eventually they settled on producer Michael Beinhorn , who "didn't have his own trademark sound which he was trying to tack on to Soundgarden" and had ideas the band approved. The album's recording sessions took place from July 1993 to September 1993 at Bad Animals Studio in Seattle , Washington , as according to Cornell "there
5150-573: 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
5356-587: 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
5562-495: 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
5768-429: 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
5974-410: 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 ,
6180-520: A more melodic, acoustic sound at times, including a recording of the older song "See the Sky About to Rain", but dealt with similarly dark themes such as the collapse of 1960s folk ideals, the downside of success and the underbelly of the Californian lifestyle. Like Time Fades Away , it sold poorly but eventually became a critical favorite, presenting some of Young's most original work. A review of
6386-486: 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
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6592-478: A musical career. Young's first stable band was the Squires , with Ken Koblun, Jeff Wuckert and Bill Edmondson on drums, who had a local hit called "The Sultan". Over three years, the band played hundreds of shows at community centers, dance halls, clubs and schools in Winnipeg and other parts of Manitoba. The band also played in Fort William (now part of the city of Thunder Bay , Ontario), where they recorded
6798-589: 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
7004-642: A part of Young's Archive series. Near the end of his tour, Young performed one of the new acoustic songs on the Johnny Cash TV show. " The Needle and the Damage Done ", a somber lament on the pain caused by heroin addiction , had been inspired in part by Crazy Horse member Danny Whitten , who eventually died while battling his drug problems. While in Nashville for the Cash taping, Young accepted
7210-459: 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
7416-444: 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),
7622-533: A return to his folk roots, as exemplified by a cover of Ian Tyson 's " Four Strong Winds ", a song Young associated with his childhood in Canada. Another of the album's songs, " Lotta Love ", was also recorded by Larson, with her version reaching No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1979. In 1978, much of the filming was done for Young's film Human Highway , which took its name from a song featured on Comes
7828-446: 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
8034-636: A rock band." Young wrote " Ohio " following the Kent State massacre on May 4, 1970. The song was quickly recorded by CSNY and immediately released as a single, even though CSNY's "Teach Your Children" was still climbing the singles charts. Later in the year, Young released his third solo album, After the Gold Rush (August 31, 1970), which featured, among others, Nils Lofgren , Stephen Stills , and CSNY bassist Greg Reeves . Young also recorded some tracks with Crazy Horse, but dismissed them early in
8240-625: 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
8446-721: 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
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8652-434: A series of demos produced by a local producer, Ray Dee, whom Young called "the original Briggs," referring to his later producer David Briggs. While playing at The Flamingo, Young met Stephen Stills , whose band The Company was playing at the same venue, and they became friends. The Squires primarily performed in Winnipeg and rural Manitoba in towns such as Selkirk , Neepawa , Brandon and Giroux (near Steinbach ), with
8858-481: 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
9064-549: A trio in May 1969. Young was originally offered a position as a sideman but agreed to join only if he received full membership, and the group – winners of the 1969 Best New Artist Grammy Award – was renamed Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young . The quartet debuted in Chicago on August 16, 1969, and later performed at the famous Woodstock Festival , during which Young skipped the majority of the acoustic set and refused to be filmed during
9270-464: 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
9476-529: 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
9682-522: A week and my voice pretty much took a beating. Towards the end of the American tour I felt like I could still kinda sing, but I wasn't really giving the band a fair shake. You don't buy a ticket to see some guy croak for two hours! That seemed like kind of a rip off." The band made up the dates later in 1995. All lyrics are written by Chris Cornell , except "Head Down" and "Half" by Ben Shepherd and "Fresh Tendrils" by Cornell and Matt Cameron . Although
9888-463: A year in Winnipeg (where he would later return) before relocating to Toronto (1957–1960). While in Toronto, he briefly attended Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute as a first-year student in 1959. According to rumor, he was expelled for riding a motorcycle down the hall of the school. He also became interested in the popular music he heard on the radio. When he was 12, his father, who had had several extramarital affairs, left his mother. She asked for
10094-501: 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
10300-406: Is about "trying to step out of being patterned and closed off and reclusive", and "4th of July" is about using LSD . Cornell talked about "Mailman" at a concert saying, "This next one is about killing your boss. It's about coming to work early one morning cause you have a special agenda and you're going to shoot him in the fucking head." Conversely, "Like Suicide" was literal, written by Cornell after
10506-423: 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
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#173280214953410712-540: 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
10918-472: 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,
11124-555: 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
11330-411: 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
11536-661: Is pumped and primed on Superunknown , and they deliver the goods." He praised it as a "hard-rock milestone – a boiling vat of volcanic power, record-making smarts, and '90s anomie and anxiety that sets a new standard for anything called metal." Ann Powers from Blender said that "guitarist Thayil helps create the stoner-rock template", and that it "stands as Soundgarden's masterpiece". Village Voice critic Robert Christgau , who had "mocked" Soundgarden's "conceptual pretentions for years", still felt their foredooming, pessimistic lyrics lacked much substance, but said they had improved composing, arranging, and producing on an album that
11742-479: Is quite dark and mysterious, as much of it is often interpreted to be dealing with issues such as substance abuse , suicide , and depression , with running themes of revenge , annihilation , seclusion , fear , loss , death , and discovery . Cornell was inspired by the writings of Sylvia Plath at the time. Commenting on the album's lyrics, Thayil said that "a lot of Superunknown seems to me to be about life, not death. Maybe not affirming it, but rejoicing—like
11948-399: 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
12154-529: Is the Band." Neil Young Neil Percival Young OC OM (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, joining the folk-rock group Buffalo Springfield . Since the beginning of his solo career, often backed by the band Crazy Horse , he released critically acclaimed albums such as Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969), After
12360-535: 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
12566-555: The Star Wars Jawas as a theme. Young's work since Harvest had alternated between being rejected by mass audiences and being seen as backward-looking by critics, sometimes both at once, and now he was suddenly viewed as relevant by a new generation, who began to discover his earlier work. Readers and critics of Rolling Stone voted him Artist of the Year for 1979 (along with The Who ), selected Rust Never Sleeps as Album of
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#173280214953412772-524: 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
12978-480: The Aztecs , may also be heard as an allegory of love lost. Zuma ' s closing track, "Through My Sails", was the only released fragment from aborted sessions with Crosby, Stills and Nash for another group album. In 1976, Young reunited with Stephen Stills for the album Long May You Run (September 20, 1976), credited to The Stills-Young Band ; the follow-up tour was ended midway through by Young, who sent Stills
13184-507: The Druids [put it]: 'Life is good, but death's gonna be even better!" Cameron said that the lyrics on the album are "a big fuck-you to the world, a plea to 'leave us alone ' ". Cornell stated that "Let Me Drown" is about "crawling back to the womb to die", "Fell on Black Days" is about realizing "you're unhappy in the extreme", "Black Hole Sun" is about a "surreal dreamscape", "Limo Wreck" is a "'shame-on-decadence' song", "The Day I Tried to Live"
13390-853: The RIAA in the United States, three times platinum in Canada and Australia, two times platinum in Sweden, platinum in the United Kingdom, and gold in the Netherlands and Italy. As of 2019 Superunknown has sold 3.9 million copies in United States according to Nielsen. The album spawned the EP Songs from the Superunknown and the CD-ROM Alive in the Superunknown , both released in 1995. The 20th-anniversary reissue of "Superunknown"
13596-626: The Superunknown record. That was the record that we referenced in terms of the sonics and the mood of it when making Slang ." The critical acclaim garnered by Superunknown has led to its inclusion in many lists of the greatest albums. The band began touring in January 1994 in Oceania and Japan, areas where the record came out early. The band had never toured these regions before. This round of touring ended in February 1994, and then in March 1994
13802-422: 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
14008-417: 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
14214-671: The punk rock zeitgeist of the late 1970s and provided a stark contrast from Comes a Time . Two new songs, the acoustic " My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) " and electric " Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) " were the centerpiece of the new material. During the filming of Human Highway , Young had collaborated with Devo on a cacophonous version of "Hey Hey, My My" at the Different Fur studio in San Francisco and would later introduce
14420-503: The 100 greatest musical artists , and 21 of his albums and singles have been certified gold or platinum in the U.S. Young was awarded the Order of Manitoba in 2006 and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2009. Neil Young was born on November 12, 1945, in Toronto. His father, Scott Alexander Young (1918–2005), was a journalist and sportswriter who also wrote fiction. His mother, Edna Blow Ragland "Rassy" Young (1918–1990)
14626-454: 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
14832-467: 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
15038-502: The 2003 re-release on CD of On the Beach described the music as "mesmerizing, harrowing, lucid, and bleary". After completing On the Beach , Young reunited with Harvest producer Elliot Mazer to record another acoustic album, Homegrown . Most of the songs were written after Young's breakup with Carrie Snodgress, and thus the tone of the album was somewhat dark. Though Homegrown was reportedly entirely complete, Young decided, not for
15244-477: 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
15450-628: 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
15656-554: 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
15862-431: 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
16068-594: 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,
16274-578: The Fireballs , The Ventures , Cliff Richard and the Shadows , Chuck Berry , Hank Marvin , Little Richard , Fats Domino , The Chantels , The Monotones , Ronnie Self , the Fleetwoods , Jerry Lee Lewis , Johnny Cash , Roy Orbison , and Gogi Grant . Young began to play music himself on a plastic ukulele , before, as he would later relate, going on to "a better ukulele to a banjo ukulele to
16480-507: 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
16686-564: The Gold Rush (1970), Harvest (1972), On the Beach (1974), and Rust Never Sleeps (1979). He was also a part-time member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young , with whom he recorded the chart-topping 1970 album Déjà Vu . Young's guitar work, deeply personal lyrics and signature high tenor singing voice define his long career. He also plays piano and harmonica on many albums, which frequently combine folk , rock , country and other musical genres. His often distorted electric guitar playing, especially with Crazy Horse, earned him
16892-471: 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
17098-506: 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
17304-503: 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
17510-590: The Navy Reserve. After the Mynah Birds disbanded, Young and the bass player Bruce Palmer decided to pawn the group's musical equipment and buy a Pontiac hearse , which they used to relocate to Los Angeles. Young admitted in a 2009 interview that he was in the United States illegally until he received a "green card" ( permanent residency permit ) in 1970. Once they reached Los Angeles, Young and Palmer met up with Stephen Stills and Richie Furay after
17716-513: The Night, when finally released in 1975, sold poorly, as had the previous albums of the "ditch" trilogy, and received mixed reviews at the time, but is now regarded as a landmark album. In Young's own opinion, it was the closest he ever came to art. Young reunited with Crosby, Stills, and Nash after a four-year hiatus in the summer of 1974 for a concert tour that was partially recorded; highlights were ultimately released in 2014 as CSNY 1974 . It
17922-514: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and other sources, Buffalo Springfield helped create the genres of folk rock and country rock. Distrust of their management, as well as the arrest and deportation of Palmer, worsened the already strained relations among the group members and led to Buffalo Springfield's demise. A second album, Buffalo Springfield Again , was released in late 1967, but two of Young's three contributions were solo tracks recorded apart from
18128-476: 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
18334-588: 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
18540-672: 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
18746-676: 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
18952-619: 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
19158-470: 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
19364-751: 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
19570-590: The Year, and voted him Male Vocalist of the Year as well. The Village Voice named Rust Never Sleeps as the year's second best album in the Pazz & Jop Poll, a survey of nationwide critics, and honored Young as the Artist of the Decade. At the start of the 1980s, distracted by medical concerns relating to the cerebral palsy of his son, Ben, Young had little time to spend on writing and recording. After providing
19776-527: 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
19982-554: The advice of his producer David Briggs , he scrapped plans for the imminent release of the live acoustic recording in favor of a studio album consisting of the Nashville sessions, electric-guitar oriented sessions recorded later in his barn, and two recordings made with the London Symphony Orchestra at Barking (credited as Barking Town Hall and now the Broadway Theatre ) during March 1971. The result
20188-458: The album about two months after finishing its stint on the 1992 Lollapalooza tour. The individual band members would work on material on their own and then bring in demos to which the other members of the band would contribute. Frontman Chris Cornell said that the band members allowed each other more freedom than on past records. Thayil observed that even though the band spent as much time writing and arranging as it had on previous albums, it spent
20394-514: The album as being "overdubbed rather than played." For his next album, Young recruited three musicians from a band called the Rockets: Danny Whitten on guitar, Billy Talbot on bass guitar, and Ralph Molina on drums. These three took the name Crazy Horse (after the historical figure of the same name ), and Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (May 1969) is credited to "Neil Young with Crazy Horse". Recorded in just two weeks,
20600-450: The album as more "challenging" and "versatile" than the band's previous releases. The songs on the album are more experimental and diverse than the band's previous recordings, with some songs having a Middle-Eastern or Indian flavor (for example "Half", sung by Shepherd). Some songs also show a Beatles influence, such as "Head Down" and " Black Hole Sun ". In a 1994 interview with Guitar World , Thayil explained, "We looked deep down inside
20806-522: The album includes " Cinnamon Girl ", " Cowgirl in the Sand ," and " Down by the River ". Young reportedly wrote all three songs in bed on the same day while nursing a high fever of 39 °C (102 °F). Shortly after the release of Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Young reunited with Stephen Stills by joining Crosby, Stills & Nash , who had already released one album, Crosby, Stills & Nash , as
21012-591: The album was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Rock Album . It has been certified six times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the United States. Superunknown has been listed by several publications as one of the best albums of the 1990s and a quintessential grunge album. In April 2019, it was ranked No. 9 on Rolling Stone ' s "50 Greatest Grunge Albums" list. Soundgarden began work on
21218-529: The album was the theme of technology and communication with his son, who could not speak. An extensive tour preceded the release of the album and was documented by the video Neil Young in Berlin , which saw release in 1986. Young's next album, 1983's Everybody's Rockin' , included several rockabilly covers and clocked in at less than 25 minutes in length. Young was backed by the Shocking Pinks for
21424-535: The album's singles featured quite a few B-sides , only "Exit Stonehenge" (from the "Spoonman" single) was sourced from the Superunknown recording sessions in 1993. "Cold Bitch" (also from "Spoonman") was recorded during the Badmotorfinger recording sessions in 1991, "Kyle Petty, Son of Richard" and "Motorcycle Loop" (both from the "Fell on Black Days" single) were recorded by Stuart Hallerman at Avast Studios in Seattle in 1994. "Kyle Petty, Son of Richard"
21630-521: The album's title came from his misreading of a video entitled Superclown . He added, "I thought it was a cool title. I'd never heard it before, never saw it before, and it inspired me." The album also saw a limited release on 12" colored vinyl (blue, orange, and clear), as a double- LP in a gatefold sleeve. The album's title 'SUPERUNKNOWN' is sometimes displayed with the "UNKNOWN" as semi upside down and reversed lettering (stylized as "SUPER∩ИKИOMИ"). On May 25, 2017, photographer Kevin Westenberg revealed
21836-489: The band for the subsequent year-long tour and final Geffen album, Life , which emerged in 1987. Young's album sales dwindled steadily throughout the eighties; today Life remains his all-time-least successful studio album, with an estimated four hundred thousand sales worldwide. Switching back to his old label Reprise Records, Young continued to tour relentlessly, assembling a new blues band called The Bluenotes in mid-1987 (a legal dispute with musician Harold Melvin forced
22042-600: The band moved on to Europe. The band was to join a 20-date co-headline American tour with Nine Inch Nails in April/May, but had to cancel. As an alternative they did a headlining theater tour on May 27, 1994. The opening acts were Tad and Eleven . In late 1994, after touring in support of Superunknown , doctors discovered that Cornell had severely strained his vocal cords . Soundgarden cancelled several more shows to avoid causing any permanent damage. Cornell said, "I think we kinda overdid it! We were playing five or six nights
22248-561: The band recording and mixing the song "Kickstand" was featured in the Bill Nye the Science Guy episode "Sound". The songs on Superunknown captured the metal influences of the band's previous works while showcasing the group's newly evolving style. Steve Huey of AllMusic said that the band's "earlier punk influences are rarely detectable, replaced by surprisingly effective appropriations of pop and psychedelia ." Cornell labeled
22454-585: 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
22660-498: The brand names of some of their sponsors. Young wrote an open letter, "What does the M in MTV stand for: music or money?" Despite this, the video was eventually named best video of the year by the network in 1989. Young reunited with Crosby, Stills, and Nash to record the 1988 album American Dream and play two benefit concerts late in the year, but the group did not embark upon a full tour. Young attracted criticism from liberals in
22866-411: The breakup of Buffalo Springfield, Young signed a solo deal with Reprise Records , home of his colleague and friend Joni Mitchell , with whom he shared a manager, Elliot Roberts . Roberts managed Young until Roberts' death in 2019. Young and Roberts immediately began work on Young's first solo record, Neil Young (January 22, 1969), which received mixed reviews. In a 1970 interview, Young deprecated
23072-405: The chart. Their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964, drawing an estimated 73 million viewers (at the time a record for an American television program) is considered a milestone in American pop culture. During the week of 4 April 1964, the Beatles held 12 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the entire top five. The Beatles went on to become
23278-622: The compilation Decade , a personally selected set of songs spanning every aspect of his work, including a handful of previously unreleased songs. The record included less commercial album tracks alongside radio hits. In June 1977 Young joined with Jeff Blackburn, Bob Mosley and John Craviotto (who later founded Craviotto drums ) to form a band called The Ducks. Over seven week the band performed 22 shows in Santa Cruz CA but were not allowed to appear beyond city limits due to Young's Crazy Horse contract. In April 2023 Young officially released
23484-424: 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
23690-424: The drug-induced deaths of Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry , Young recorded an album specifically inspired by the incidents, Tonight's the Night (June 20, 1975). The album's dark tone and rawness led Reprise to delay its release and Young had to pressure them for two years before they would do so. While his record company was stalling, Young recorded another album, On the Beach (July 16, 1974), which presented
23896-455: 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
24102-460: 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,"
24308-462: 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
24514-416: The electric set, even telling the cameramen: "One of you fuckin' guys comes near me and I'm gonna fuckin' hit you with my guitar". During the making of their first album, Déjà Vu (March 11, 1970), the musicians frequently argued, particularly Young and Stills, who both fought for control. Stills continued throughout their lifelong relationship to criticize Young, saying that he "wanted to play folk music in
24720-519: 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
24926-479: The end of his 1978 tour with Crazy Horse and the start of his tour with the Trans Band in mid-1982. The 80s were really good. The 80s were like, artistically, very strong for me, because I knew no boundaries and was experimenting with everything that I could come across, sometimes with great success, sometimes with terrible results, but nonetheless I was able to do this, and I was able to realize that I wasn't in
25132-423: The eventual rechristening of the band as Ten Men Working midway through the tour). The addition of a brass section provided a new jazzier sound, and the title track of 1988's This Note's For You became Young's first hit single of the decade. Accompanied by a video that parodied corporate rock, the pretensions of advertising, and Michael Jackson , the song was initially unofficially banned by MTV for mentioning
25338-581: 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
25544-414: The first or last time in his career, to drop it and release something else instead, in this case, Tonight's the Night , at the suggestion of Band bassist Rick Danko . Young further explained his move by saying: "It was a little too personal ... it scared me". Most of the songs from Homegrown were later incorporated into other Young albums while the original album was not released until 2020. Tonight's
25750-498: 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
25956-455: 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
26162-513: 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
26368-489: The full photo from the cover for the first time on his Instagram account. Superunknown was Soundgarden's breakthrough album, earning the band international recognition. Upon its release in March 1994, Superunknown debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 album chart, and eventually closed the year as the 13th best-selling album of 1994, with 2.5 million copies sold. The album has been certified six times platinum by
26574-458: 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
26780-562: The incidental music to the 1980 film Where the Buffalo Roam , Young released Hawks & Doves (November 3, 1980), a short record pieced together from sessions going back to 1974. Re·ac·tor (1981), an electric album recorded with Crazy Horse, also included material from the 1970s. Young did not tour in support of either album; in total, he played only one show, a set at the 1980 Bread and Roses Festival in Berkeley , between
26986-546: The intensity of Superunknown , he sought influence from European electronic music , such as the British Aphex Twin and the Dutch genre of Gabber , described by him as "some of the rawest music made". Soundgarden used alternate tunings and odd time signatures on several of the album's songs. "Spoonman", "Black Hole Sun", "Let Me Drown" and "Kickstand" were performed in drop D tuning while "Fell on Black Days"
27192-467: 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
27398-427: The invitation of Quadrafonic Sound Studios owner Elliot Mazer to record tracks there with a group of country-music session musicians who were pulled together at the last minute. Making a connection with them, he christened them The Stray Gators , and began playing with them. Befitting the immediacy of the project, Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor were brought in from the Cash taping to do background vocals. Against
27604-517: 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
27810-446: 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
28016-425: The length of time Soundgarden spent working on the album. The band spent time experimenting with different drum and guitar sounds, as well as utilizing techniques such as layering, resulting in an expansive production sound. Cornell said, "Michael Beinhorn was so into sounds. He was so, almost, anal about it, that it took the piss out of us a lot of the time ... By the time you get the sounds that you want to record
28222-410: 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
28428-558: The lump of cocaine that was clearly visible hanging from Young's nose during his performance of " Helpless ". American Stars 'n Bars (June 13, 1977) contained two songs originally recorded for the Homegrown album, "Homegrown" and "Star of Bethlehem", as well as newer material, including the future concert staple " Like a Hurricane ". Performers on the record included Linda Ronstadt , Emmylou Harris and Young protégé Nicolette Larson along with Crazy Horse. In 1977, Young also released
28634-569: The lyrics to their hit " Sweet Home Alabama ". However, Young said he was a fan of Skynyrd's music, and the band's front man Ronnie Van Zant was later photographed wearing a Tonight's the Night T-shirt on the cover of an album . In the autumn of 1970, Young began a solo acoustic tour of North America, during which he played a variety of his Buffalo Springfield and CSNY songs on guitar and piano, along with material from his solo albums and several new songs. Some songs premiered by Young on
28840-476: 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
29046-674: 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,
29252-609: 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
29458-479: 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
29664-435: 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
29870-401: 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
30076-504: The music industry when he supported President Ronald Reagan and said he was "tired of people constantly apologizing for being Americans". In a 1985 interview with Melody Maker , he said about the AIDS pandemic : "You go to a supermarket and you see a faggot behind the fuckin' cash register, you don't want him to handle your potatoes." In the same interview, Young also complained about welfare beneficiaries, saying: "Stop being supported by
30282-465: 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
30488-608: 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
30694-535: The nickname " Godfather of Grunge " and led to his 1995 album Mirror Ball with Pearl Jam . More recently he has been backed by Promise of the Real . Young directed (or co-directed) films using the pseudonym "Bernard Shakey", including Journey Through the Past (1973), Rust Never Sleeps (1979), Human Highway (1982), Greendale (2003), CSNY/Déjà Vu (2008), and Harvest Time (2022). He also contributed to
30900-490: The ongoing legal battle with Geffen, although he was also frustrated that the label had rejected his 1982 country album Old Ways . It was also the year when Young's third child was born, a girl named Amber Jean, who was later diagnosed with inherited epilepsy. Young spent most of 1984 and all of 1985 touring for Old Ways (August 12, 1985) with his country band, the International Harvesters. The album
31106-471: 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
31312-539: The recently deceased "King" Elvis Presley , who himself had once been disparaged as a dangerous influence only to later become an icon . Rotten returned the favor by playing one of Young's songs, "Revolution Blues" from On the Beach , on a London radio show, an early sign of Young's eventual embrace by several punk-influenced alternative musicians. Young's two accompanying albums Rust Never Sleeps (July 2, 1979; new material culled from live recordings, but featuring studio overdubs) and Live Rust (November 19, 1979;
31518-502: The record's range and, despite criticizing "Black Hole Sun" and "Half", he said "at its best, Superunknown offers a more harrowing depiction of alienation and despair than anything on In Utero ". Jon Pareles of The New York Times credited the band with trying to transcend conventional heavy metal: " Superunknown actually tries to broaden its audience by breaking heavy-metal genre barriers that Soundgarden used to accept." In Entertainment Weekly , David Browne wrote, "Soundgarden
31724-653: 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
31930-458: The rest of the group. From that album, " Mr. Soul " was the only Young song of the three that all five members of the group performed together. In May 1968, the band split up for good, but to fulfill a contractual obligation, a final studio album, Last Time Around , was released. Young contributed the songs "On the Way Home" and "I Am a Child", singing lead on the latter. In 1997, the band
32136-448: 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
32342-475: 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
32548-522: 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
32754-555: 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
32960-419: The sessions. The eventual recording was less amplified than Everybody Knows This is Nowhere , with a wider range of sounds. Young's newfound fame with CSNY made the album his commercial breakthrough as a solo artist, and it contains some of his best-known work, including " Tell Me Why " and " Don't Let It Bring You Down "; the singles " Only Love Can Break Your Heart " and " When You Dance I Can Really Love "; and
33166-498: 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
33372-413: 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
33578-411: The song to Crazy Horse. The lyric "It's better to burn out than to fade away" was widely quoted by his peers and critics. The album has also widely been considered a precursor of grunge music with the bands Nirvana and Pearl Jam having cited Young's heavily distorted and abrasive guitar style on the B side to this album as an inspiration. Young also compared the rise of Johnny Rotten with that of
33784-549: The song, you're sick and tired of playing it." Beinhorn tried to add many of his preferred musicians to mold the band's sound, in what Billboard described as "weaning the band from brute force, giving it the impetus to invest in a more subtle power". For instance, prior to recording the vocals of " Black Hole Sun ", Beinhorn made Cornell listen to Frank Sinatra . Superunknown lasts for 15 songs clocking on approximately 70 minutes because according to Cornell, "we didn't really want to argue over what should be cut". Soundgarden took
33990-417: The soundtracks of the films Philadelphia (1993) and Dead Man (1995). Young has received multiple Grammy and Juno Awards . The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has inducted him twice: in 1995 as a solo artist and in 1997 as a member of Buffalo Springfield. In 2023, Rolling Stone named Young No. 30 on their list of 250 greatest guitarists of all time. Young is also on Rolling Stone ' s list of
34196-432: The success of Harvest , it became apparent during rehearsals that Whitten could not function due to drug abuse. On November 18, 1972, shortly after he was fired from the tour preparations, Whitten was found dead of an apparent alcohol/ diazepam overdose. Young described the incident to Rolling Stone ' s Cameron Crowe in 1975: "[We] were rehearsing with him and he just couldn't cut it. He couldn't remember anything. He
34402-469: The supporting US tour. Trans (1982) had already drawn the ire of label head David Geffen for its lack of commercial appeal, and with Everybody's Rockin ' following seven months later, Geffen Records sued Young for making music "unrepresentative" of himself. The album was also notable as the first for which Young made commercial music videos – Tim Pope directed the videos for "Wonderin'" and "Cry, Cry, Cry". Also premiered in 1983, though little seen,
34608-558: 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
34814-431: The title track, " After the Gold Rush ", played on piano, with dreamlike lyrics that ran a gamut of subjects from drugs and interpersonal relationships to environmental concerns . Young's bitter condemnation of racism in the heavy blues-rock song " Southern Man " (along with a later song entitled "Alabama") was also controversial with southerners in an era of desegregation, prompting Lynyrd Skynyrd to decry Young by name in
35020-512: The tour, like "Journey through the Past", would never find a home on a studio album, while other songs, like "See the Sky About to Rain", would only be released in coming years. Many gigs were sold out, including concerts at Carnegie Hall and a pair of acclaimed hometown shows at Toronto's Massey Hall , which were taped for a planned live album. The shows became legendary among Young fans, with Live at Massey Hall 1971 being released in 2007, and other shows as official bootlegs in 2021 and 2022, as
35226-458: The tour. Young has often said the album assembled in the aftermath, Time Fades Away (October 15, 1973), was his least favorite. It was not officially released on CD until 2017 (as part of Young's Official Release Series ). Nevertheless, Young and his band tried several new musical approaches in this period. Time Fades Away was recorded live, although it was an album of new material, an approach Young would repeat with more success later on. Time
35432-409: 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
35638-466: The very core of our souls and there was a little Ringo sitting there. Oh sure, we like telling people it's John Lennon or George Harrison ; but when you really look deep inside of Soundgarden, there's a little Ringo wanting to get out." Drummer Matt Cameron said that the experimentation on the album was "just a matter of refinement." According to The A.V. Club , the album "both redefined and transcended grunge". Michael Beinhorn stated that to achieve
35844-418: 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
36050-533: 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
36256-404: 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
36462-462: 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
36668-505: Was "easily the best—most galvanizing, kinetic, sensational, catchy — Zep rip in history". In a retrospective review, AllMusic editor Steve Huey wrote, "It's obvious that Superunknown was consciously styled as a masterwork, and it fulfills every ambition." It received a nomination in the Best Rock Album category for the 1995 Grammy Awards . "We were listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam just like everybody else," remarked Def Leppard 's Vivian Campbell , "and especially to Soundgarden –
36874-460: 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
37080-421: Was Young's fourth album, Harvest (February 14, 1972), which was also the best selling album of 1972 in the US. After his success with CSNY, Young purchased a ranch in the rural hills above Woodside and Redwood City in Northern California ("Broken Arrow Ranch", where he lived until his divorce in 2014). He wrote the song " Old Man " in honor of the land's longtime caretaker, Louis Avila. The song " A Man Needs
37286-498: Was a critical and commercial success and became the band's breakthrough album. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 , selling 310,000 copies in its opening week. The album also topped the Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand charts. Five singles were released from the album: " The Day I Tried to Live ", " My Wave ", " Fell on Black Days ", " Spoonman ", and " Black Hole Sun ", the latter two of which won Grammy Awards and helped Soundgarden reach mainstream popularity. In 1995,
37492-417: Was a forest in grey or black. Soundgarden has always been associated with images of flowers and lush colors and this was the opposite. It still seemed organic but it was very dark and cold ... I was into those stories as a kid where forests were full of evil and scary things as opposed to being happy gardens that you go camping in." In a 1994 Pulse! magazine interview, Cornell said that the inspiration for
37698-473: 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
37904-405: Was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution . Although Canadian, his mother had American and French ancestry. Young's parents married in 1940 in Winnipeg , Manitoba, and moved to Toronto shortly thereafter where their first son, Robert "Bob" Young, was born in 1942. Shortly after Young's birth in 1945, the family moved to rural Omemee, Ontario , which Young later described fondly as
38110-424: 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
38316-542: Was finally released in an altered form midway through 1985. Young also appeared at that year's Live Aid concert in Philadelphia , collaborating with Crosby, Stills and Nash for the quartet's first performance for a paying audience in over ten years. Young's last two albums for Geffen were more conventional in the genre, although they incorporated production techniques like synthesizers and echoing drums that were previously uncommon in Young's music. Young recorded 1986's Landing on Water without Crazy Horse but reunited with
38522-449: 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
38728-426: Was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; Young did not appear at the ceremony, writing in a letter to the Hall that their presentation, which was aired on VH1 , "has nothing to do with the spirit of Rock and Roll. It has everything to do with making money." Young played as a studio session guitarist for some 1968 recordings by The Monkees which appeared on the Head and Instant Replay albums. After
38934-411: Was later featured on the 1996 Home Alive compilation. "Tighter & Tighter", "No Attention", and "An Unkind", all of which later appeared on the band's 1996 album, Down on the Upside , were attempted during the Superunknown recording sessions. Cameron said that the band wasn't pleased with the recording of "No Attention" that came out of the sessions. An instrumental entitled "Ruff Riff-Raff" and
39140-399: Was made available in two deluxe versions. The Deluxe Edition was a 2-CD package featuring the remastered album along with disc two consisting of demos, rehearsals, B-sides and more. The Super Deluxe Edition was a 5-CD package featuring the remastered album, additional demos, rehearsals and B-sides and the fifth disc is the album mixed in Blu-ray Audio 5.1 Surround Sound. The Super Deluxe Edition
39346-502: Was never a decent studio in Seattle and now there's one with a Neve console, so it seemed obvious to use it". Bad Animals' resident engineer Adam Kasper , who went on to produce Soundgarden's following albums, assisted Beinhorn on the recording process. Soundgarden took the approach of recording one song at a time. The drum and bass parts were recorded first for each song, and then Cornell and Thayil would lay down their parts over top. Cornell said that getting to know Beinhorn contributed to
39552-400: Was one of the first ever stadium tours and the largest tour in which Young has participated to date. In 1975, Young reformed Crazy Horse with Frank Sampedro on guitar as his backup band for his eighth album, Zuma (November 10, 1975). Many of the songs dealt with the theme of failed relationships; " Cortez the Killer ", a retelling of the Spanish conquest of Mexico from the viewpoint of
39758-460: Was packaged in a hardbound book with a lenticular cover, liner notes by David Fricke and newly reimagined album artwork designed by Josh Graham. It also featured never-before-seen band photography by Kevin Westerberg. A 2-LP gatefold of the original 16 vinyl tracks remastered on 200-gram vinyl in a gatefold jacket was also made available. In addition, the Superunknown singles and associated b-sides with newly interpreted artwork sleeves by Josh Graham
39964-440: Was performed in standard tuning. Some songs used more unorthodox tunings: "Superunknown" and "Fresh Tendrils" are in DGDGBe tuning; "Like Suicide" is performed in a similar DGDGBC tuning; "My Wave" and "The Day I Tried to Live" are both in an EEBBBe tuning; "Mailman" and "Limo Wreck" employed CGDGBe tuning; "Head Down" and "Half" both utilised CGCGGe tuning; and "4th of July" uses CFCGBe tuning. Soundgarden's use of odd time signatures
40170-408: Was reissued on Record Store Day , April 19, 2014, as a set of five limited-edition 10-inch vinyl records." Superunknown received universal acclaim from music critics. Q said, "Soundgarden dealt in unreconstructed heavy rock: a heavy guitar sound, depth-charge drumming ... Yet Superunknown also includes more measured moments". Rolling Stone magazine's J. D. Considine was impressed by
40376-411: 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
40582-548: 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,
40788-439: 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,
40994-428: Was the first of three consecutive commercial failures which became known collectively to fans as the "Ditch Trilogy", as contrasted with the more middle-of-the-road pop of Harvest . In the second half of 1973, Young formed The Santa Monica Flyers, with Crazy Horse's rhythm section augmented by Nils Lofgren on guitar and piano and Harvest / Time Fades Away veteran Ben Keith on pedal steel guitar. Deeply affected by
41200-414: Was the long-gestating Human Highway . Co-directed and co-written by Young, the eclectic comedy starred Young, Dean Stockwell , Russ Tamblyn , Dennis Hopper , David Blue , Sally Kirkland , Charlotte Stewart and members of Devo. Young did not release an album in 1984, his first unproductive year since beginning his career with Buffalo Springfield in 1966. Young's lack of productivity was largely due to
41406-430: 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
41612-400: 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
41818-476: Was to back away from stardom. In the Decade (1977) compilation, Young chose to include his greatest hits from the period, but his handwritten liner notes famously described "Heart of Gold" as the song that "put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore, so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there." Although a new tour with The Stray Gators (now augmented by Danny Whitten) had been planned to follow up on
42024-414: Was too out of it. Too far gone. I had to tell him to go back to L.A. 'It's not happening, man. You're not together enough.' He just said, 'I've got nowhere else to go, man. How am I gonna tell my friends?' And he split. That night the coroner called me from L.A. and told me he'd OD'd. That blew my mind. I loved Danny. I felt responsible. And from there, I had to go right out on this huge tour of huge arenas. I
42230-403: Was varied as well; "Fell On Black Days" is in 6/4, "Limo Wreck" is played in 15/8, "My Wave" alternates between 5/4 and 4/4, and "The Day I Tried to Live" alternates between 7/8 and 4/4 sections. Thayil has said that Soundgarden usually did not consider the time signature of a song until after the band had written it, and said that the use of odd meters was "a total accident". Lyrically, the album
42436-406: Was very nervous and ... insecure." On the tour, Young struggled with his voice and the performance of drummer Kenny Buttrey , a noted Nashville session musician who was unaccustomed to performing in the hard rock milieu; Buttrey was eventually replaced by former CSNY drummer Johnny Barbata , while David Crosby and Graham Nash contributed rhythm guitar and backing vocals to the final dates of
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