Pop rock (also typeset as pop/rock ) is a fusion genre and form of rock music characterized by a strong commercial appeal, with more emphasis on professional songwriting and recording craft, and less emphasis on attitude than standard rock music . Originating in the late 1950s as an alternative to normal rock and roll , early pop rock was influenced by the beat , arrangements, and original style of rock and roll (and sometimes doo-wop ). It may be viewed as a distinct genre field rather than music that overlaps with pop and rock. The detractors of pop rock often deride it as a slick, commercial product and less authentic than rock music.
34-461: Red Carpet Massacre is the twelfth studio album by the English pop rock band Duran Duran , released on 13 November 2007 by Epic Records . Most of the music on the final incarnation of the album was completed in late 2006 following the departure of band member Andy Taylor with new guitarist Dominic Brown replacing him, when record producer Timbaland began working with the band. However, Brown
68-422: A "real connection with the audience". Frith's analysis of the history of popular music from the 1950s to the 1980s has been criticized by B. J. Moore-Gilbert, who argues that Frith and other scholars have overemphasized the role of rock in the history of popular music by naming every new genre using the "rock" suffix. Thus, when a folk-oriented style of music developed in the 1960s, Frith termed it "folk rock", and
102-560: A 22.2 Georg Neumann monitoring system, with loudspeakers in an 11.1.8 configuration. All the loudspeakers are arrayed at 30° of separation to each other. The studio can accommodate all possible formats, incoming mixing consoles and caters for several interface formats including MADI , Dante (networking) , AES3 and Ravenna (networking) . When the studio launched, Amazon Music agreed a content deal with Metropolis to become their UK-based headquarters for immersive mixing which in turn, has led to many record labels following suit to utilise
136-408: A band, more direct and a return to our dance and 'new wave' origins", adding that they had brought 15 tracks to near completion. The record was provisionally titled Reportage and expected to be released in late May 2006 with a summer tour to follow, but as reported by Billboard , the album was delayed as guitarist Andy Taylor had a falling-out with the rest of the band for unknown reasons, and
170-569: A bright mood. Critic Philip Auslander argues that the distinction between pop and rock is more pronounced in the US than in the UK. He claims that in the US, pop has roots in white crooners such as Perry Como , whereas rock is rooted in African-American music influenced by forms such as rock and roll . Auslander points out that the concept of pop rock, which blends pop and rock, is at odds with
204-417: A high specification utilising equipment from brands such as PMC Ltd. , Bryston and Prism. Two of the rooms were designed with stereo and 5.1 surround sound in mind, while the others are set up for cutting vinyl with a Neumann VMS-80 Disc cutting lathe . In more recent years, Metropolis Mastering began offering an online mastering service which enabled clients to receive these services remotely. Additions to
238-643: A listening party for the media at which the album title was announced, band members Le Bon, Rhodes, John Taylor and Roger Taylor went back to England to work on some mixes for the album and perform at the Concert for Diana and Live Earth concerts in London. They completed one more recording session in New York and then returned to London to put the finishing touches on the album before its release. Duran Duran bassist John Taylor criticised Sony Music for turning
272-411: A message posted on the band's site announced: "As of last weekend [...] the four of us have dissolved our partnership and will be continuing as Duran Duran without Andy, as we have reached a point in our relationship with him where there is an unworkable gulf between us and we can no longer effectively function together." Dominic Brown , who had taken Taylor's place at several previous missed concerts in
306-475: A softer alternative to rock and roll. In the aftermath of the British Invasion , from about 1967, it was increasingly used in opposition to the term rock, to describe a form that was more commercial, ephemeral and accessible. As of the 2010s, "guitar pop rock" and " indie rock " are roughly synonymous terms. " Jangle " is a noun-adjective that music critics often use in reference to guitar pop with
340-623: Is a music production and entertainment industry company established in 1989 by Gary Langan , Carey Taylor, Karin Clayton and Alexander Skeaping. It is located in the Power House , a Grade II listed building , at 70 Chiswick High Road in Chiswick , London, England. Over the last twenty years the group has expanded and now consists of three divisions: Metropolis Studios, Metropolis Mastering, and Digital Media/Productions. Metropolis Studios
374-592: Is not considered an official member, so Duran Duran is featured as a quartet. " Falling Down " was the only single released from the album. Red Carpet Massacre debuted at number 44 on the UK Albums Chart , becoming the band's second lowest-debuting album on the chart, after Pop Trash (2000). The album debuted at number 36 on the US Billboard 200 , selling 29,000 copies in its first week. The following week, it fell to number 116. As of February 2011,
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#1732782922100408-468: The façade , are two large female figures that represent 'electricity' and 'locomotion'. This substantial building was conceived to be so large as to prevent any of the houses in the neighbourhood (which still tended to be large properties with influential owners) suffering from the vibration and dust caused by the steam powered generators. Due to competition from Lots Road Power Station in Chelsea , power
442-500: The ' Back to Black ' album for Amy Winehouse . The studios has also been used in the past by Queen , Michael Jackson , U2 , Lady Gaga , Little Mix , Adele , Rihanna and Lauryn Hill . Established in 1993, Metropolis Mastering was founded by Tony Cousins, Ian Cooper, Tim Young and Crispin Murray, with the aim to “to master audio to a standard never previously achieved”. Metropolis houses five mastering rooms that were designed to
476-404: The 1970s; he regarded "pop-rock" as a "monolith" that "straddled" all burgeoning movements and subgenres in the popular and semipopular music marketplace at the time, including singer-songwriter music, art rock , heavy metal , boogie , country rock , jazz fusion , funk , disco , urban contemporary , and new wave , but not punk rock . Metropolis Studios Metropolis Studios
510-535: The album had sold 102,000 copies in the United States. It was Duran Duran's second and final album released under Epic Records, before the band parted ways with the label in 2009. The band did its initial recording for its follow-up to Astronaut with producer Michael Patterson between September 2005 and April 2006. Roger Taylor said in March 2006, "The record will be in some ways a homage to our roots as
544-478: The authors Larry Starr and Christopher Waterman, it is defined as an "upbeat variety of rock music" represented by artists and bands such as Andy Kim , the Bells , Paul McCartney , Lighthouse , and Peter Frampton . The term "pop" has been used since the early forties to refer to popular music in general, but in the mid-1950s, it began to be used for a distinct genre, aimed at a youth market, often characterized as
578-477: The band signed a deal for the album with BMG (along with Medazzaland , Pop Trash and Astronaut ) which saw it being re-issued in the UK on various digital platforms, with a planned vinyl re-issue due to be released at a later date. All lyrics are written by Simon Le Bon ; all music is composed by Duran Duran and Nate Hills , except where noted. All tracks produced by Nate "Danja" Hills, Jimmy Douglass and Duran Duran, except where noted Credits adapted from
612-445: The building was converted into a recording studios, and the home of Metropolis Studios. Metropolis Studios consists of four floors, 5 recording and mixing studios, and four production rooms. It has a concrete and metal atrium , with steel, plywood and render in other rooms. In the studios, the design engineers have placed obtuse angle to refract sound. Studio B was used as the London mixing studio for Mark Ronson , when he produced
646-434: The guitar and the bass and the drums come in to the studio, I think he was mortified, because everything's in a box for those guys." Red Carpet Massacre was met with generally favorable reviews from music critics . At Metacritic , which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 61, based on 20 reviews. It was briefly released on vinyl. In 2021,
680-429: The liner notes of Red Carpet Massacre . Pop rock Much pop and rock music has been very similar in sound, instrumentation and even lyrical content. The terms "pop rock" and " power pop " have been used to describe more commercially successful music that uses elements from, or the form of, rock music. Writer Johan Fornas views pop/rock as "one single, continuous genre field", rather than distinct categories. To
714-483: The material was eventually shelved altogether in favour of recording Red Carpet Massacre . In early October 2006, vocalist Simon Le Bon announced that the band had recorded three songs with Timbaland , his protégé Nate 'Danja' Hills and engineer Jimmy Douglass at Manhattan Center Studios during September. Billboard reported that one of those tracks was "Nite-Runner", featuring Justin Timberlake , which at
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#1732782922100748-590: The much-anticipated fan-club only Hammerstein Ballroom concert in New York City on 17 June, and Le Bon was still touting it as the probable first single in a post to the band's official website. Several other album tracks ("The Valley", "Red Carpet Massacre", "Skin Divers" and "Box Full O' Honey") were played over the sound system at the concert, but were not performed live. Following the New York concert and
782-519: The original founding team of engineers include: Stuart Hawkes, John Davis, Matt Colton , Andy 'Hippy' Baldwin, Felix Davis, Mike Hillier and Natalie Bibby. In summer 2021, Metropolis Studios launched their 3D Audio studio for mixing in all spatial formats. It is currently the highest resolution Dolby Atmos studio in the UK. The studio is designed to be as versatile as possible in order to accommodate as many different workflows as possible including realtime immersive mixing of livestreams. The room provides
816-479: The past, was hired as Duran Duran's guitarist, taking part in the recording sessions. Brown has since performed with the band as their full-time touring guitarist, but he has never been introduced as an official member. Taylor told Rolling Stone magazine that he was in favour of a more electric sound, whereas Le Bon wanted to go in a different direction involving people such as Justin Timberlake and Timbaland . In addition, Taylor wrote in his autobiography that in
850-460: The pop-infused styles of the 1970s were called "pop rock". Moore-Gilbert claims that this approach unfairly puts rock at the apex and makes every other influence become an add-on to the central core of rock. In Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau discussed the term "pop-rock" in the context of popular music's fragmentation along stylistic lines in
884-400: The protection of the building from the developers, which in turn led to the building being listed in 1975, one of the first Victorian buildings to be so nominated, and the first that was built in the 20th century. In 1985, the upper part of the building was converted into flats, including a penthouse which is split over three levels. In 1989, after a large scale redevelopment, the lower part of
918-448: The recording session with Timbaland, but that he became incommunicado and was unreachable by phone or email, leaving them no choice but to continue on without him. The band decided to rewrite the whole album following Taylor's departure. 14 songs had been completed for Reportage , but according to Le Bon: "When we sat down and listened to what we had done on our own, we didn't feel we had a lead track, so we got in touch with Timbaland, who
952-467: The renewed bickering between himself, Nick Rhodes and Le Bon grew worse, and it was not helped by Taylor's emotional state following the death of his father, later diagnosed as clinical depression. According to Taylor's autobiography, the final straw came when he discovered that the band's management had not been able to secure a working visa for him to record in the United States. The other band members maintained that they fully expected him to show up for
986-447: The time was expected to be the first single from the album. Two additional songs on which the band worked with Timbaland were titled "Skin Divers" and "Zooming In". Also mentioned were two other tracks, "48 Hours Later" and "Transcendental Mental", which were not used on the album. Andy Taylor did not perform at any of Duran Duran's October shows and had not participated during the New York sessions with Timbaland, and on 25 October 2006,
1020-440: The typical conception of pop and rock as opposites. Auslander and several other scholars, such as Simon Frith and Grossberg, argue that pop music is often depicted as an inauthentic, cynical, "slickly commercial", and formulaic form of entertainment. In contrast, rock music is often heralded as an authentic, sincere, and anti-commercial form of music, which emphasizes songwriting by the singers and bands, instrumental virtuosity, and
1054-576: The work on Red Carpet Massacre into a "nightmare". According to him, the record label wanted to make their record "a bit pop" and forced them to collaborate with Timbaland, which turned out to be an unpleasant experience for the band. "We delivered an album to Sony that was a natural-sounding, almost rock album, and they were like: 'We need something a bit pop, do you fancy doing a couple of tracks with Timbaland?'", he claimed. Nick Rhodes added: "The thing was, we got an opportunity to work with Timbaland, so we thought, 'Great, let's go for it'. When Timbaland saw
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1088-462: Was bought out on 31 May 2013 by 'MLML (Metropolis London Music Limited)' by Kainne Clements, (who also owns the Academy of Contemporary Music ) The Group in 2017 gained a new CEO Richard Connell, a former Sony Music executive. The Power House was built in 1901 by a young architect William Curtis Green to power the trams of West London. It originally had a 260-ft. high steel smoke-stack . On
1122-541: Was only generated until 1920 when the building was decommissioned and stripped of its equipment. Being mainly used as a storage facility, the Power House gradually fell into disrepair. Then in 1962 the trolley bus service was closed, the chimney was then demolished in 1966. London Transport (by then the owners) decided to redevelop the site. This led to an outcry and the Victorian Society campaigned for
1156-481: Was the only producer out there that we knew we all liked." Following the New York sessions in September, Duran Duran moved to Metropolis Studios in London with Danja and Douglass for the next sessions. In June 2007, Duran Duran announced on their official website that they were recording yet another track with Timberlake, titled " Falling Down ". However, it was "Nite-Runner" that the band decided to debut live at
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