In music , a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. A drone may also be any part of a musical instrument used to produce this effect; an archaic term for this is burden ( bourdon or burdon ) such as a "drone [pipe] of a bagpipe ", the pedal point in an organ , or the lowest course of a lute . Α burden is also part of a song that is repeated at the end of each stanza , such as the chorus or refrain .
197-599: The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1964. It originally comprised the singer and guitarist Lou Reed , the Welsh multi-instrumentalist John Cale , the guitarist Sterling Morrison and the drummer Angus MacLise . In 1965, MacLise was replaced by Moe Tucker , who played on most of the band's recordings. Though their integration of rock and the avant-garde earned them little commercial success, they are now widely regarded as one of
394-612: A Rolling Stone article from 1970, "it wasn't eighteen groups, [Curb] was misquoted. The cuts were made partly to do with the drug scene—like maybe a third of them had to do with drug reasons. The others were dropped because they weren't selling." Lou Reed would later remark in the 1987 issue of Creem that while he did not believe that MGM dropped the Velvets for drug associations, he did acknowledge, "We wanted to get out of there." Cotillion Records (a subsidiary of Atlantic Records that specialized in blues and Southern soul ) signed
591-474: A pedal tone or point in degree or quality. A pedal point may be a form of nonchord tone and thus required to resolve unlike a drone, or a pedal point may simply be considered a shorter drone, a drone being a longer pedal point. The systematic use of drones originated in instrumental music of ancient Southwest Asia , and spread north and west to Europe and south to Africa . It is used in Indian music and
788-524: A sellout ; he was also unwilling to be told when to start and stop playing. "Angus was in it for art", Morrison reported. MacLise was replaced by Maureen "Moe" Tucker , the younger sister of Morrison's friend Jim Tucker. Tucker's playing style was rather unusual: she generally played standing up rather than seated and had an abbreviated drum setup of tom-toms , snare and an upturned bass drum , using mallets as often as drumsticks, and rarely using cymbals (she admits that she always hated cymbals). When
985-514: 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
1182-401: A choice of either no Cale or no band at all, the pair reluctantly sided with Reed. It has often been reported that before Cale's departure (following White Light/White Heat ) there was a struggle between his creative impulses and Reed's: Cale's experimentalist tendencies had contrasted with Reed's more conventional approach. According to Tim Mitchell, however, Morrison reported that while there
1379-450: A claim of $ 500,000 ($ 4,568,862 in 2023 dollars) for use of his image. Instead of compensating Emerson for damages, MGM Records canceled all distribution of the album for nearly two months until the legal problems were settled (by which time the record had lost its modest commercial momentum), and the still was airbrushed out of the remaining copies of the album. By the time the record was re-distributed into stores, it faced stiff competition in
1576-459: A continuous B throughout her album Le_Fil . Drones continue to be characteristic of folk music. Early songs by Bob Dylan employ the effect with a retuned guitar in " Masters of War " and " Mr. Tambourine Man ". The song " You Will Be My Ain True Love ", written by Sting for the 2003 movie Cold Mountain and performed by Alison Krauss and Sting, uses drone bass. Drones are used widely in
1773-610: A drone and this song was used in Tv. Shows as a hunting effect. Drones are used by a number of music education programs for ear training and pitch awareness, as well as a way to improvise ensemble music. A shruti box is often used by vocalists in this style of musical training. Drones, owing to their acoustic properties and following their longstanding use in ritual and chant, can be useful in constructing aural structures outside common practice expectations of harmony and melody . [REDACTED] This article incorporates text from
1970-534: A drone. Bagpipes (like the Great Highland Bagpipe and the Zampogna ) feature a number of drone pipes, giving the instruments their characteristic sounds. A hurdy-gurdy has one or more drone strings. The fifth string on a five-string banjo is a drone string with a separate tuning peg that places the end of the string five frets down the neck of the instrument; this string is usually tuned to
2167-616: A droning sound. The pair rehearsed and performed together; their partnership and shared interests built the path towards what would later become the Velvet Underground. Reed's first group with Cale was the Primitives, a short-lived group assembled to issue budget-priced recordings and support an anti-dance single written by Reed, "The Ostrich", to which Cale added a viola passage. Reed and Cale recruited Sterling Morrison —a college classmate of Reed's at Syracuse University —as
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#17327728062482364-470: A few other session musicians in an unspecified London studio. While Yule intended to recruit Moe Tucker to play drums on Squeeze and the handful of promotional shows, Sesnick vetoed his decision and claimed she was "too expensive" to hire. Yule was also prevented by Sesnick to participate in the mixing of the album's tracks prior to the album's release the following year. Squeeze was released in February
2561-419: A final album under the Velvet Underground name, Squeeze (1973), recorded mostly by Yule with session musicians, before the band dissolved shortly after. The former band members collaborated on each other's solo work throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and a retrospective "rarities" album, VU , was released in 1985. Reed, Cale, Tucker and Morrison reunited for a series of well-received shows in 1993, and released
2758-519: 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
2955-481: 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
3152-628: 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
3349-432: A higher profile. He helped the band secure a recording contract with MGM's Verve Records, with himself as nominal " producer ", and gave the Velvets free rein over the sound they created. During their stay with Andy Warhol, the band became part of his multimedia roadshow, Exploding Plastic Inevitable , which combined Warhol's films with the band's music, which made use of minimalist devices, such as drones. Warhol included
3546-630: 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
3743-417: A live album from the tour, Live MCMXCIII , later that same year. After Morrison's death in 1995, the remaining members played a final performance at their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 1996. Reed died in 2013. In 2004, the Velvet Underground were ranked number 19 on Rolling Stone ' s list of the " 100 Greatest Artists of All Time ". The New York Times wrote that the Velvet Underground
3940-454: A lot on Loaded . It sort of devolved down to the Lou and Doug recreational recording." While the third Velvets' LP was recorded mostly live in a collaborative atmosphere, the bulk of Loaded was crafted in the studio. In addition to handling all the bass and piano duties on Loaded , Yule also contributed several lead guitar parts and played drums on five of the album's ten tracks (most notably on
4137-573: 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
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#17327728062484334-587: 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
4531-495: 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
4728-429: 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
4925-571: A majority of Nico's albums. Reed started his solo career in 1972 after a brief sabbatical. Sterling Morrison was a professor for some time, teaching Medieval Literature at the University of Texas at Austin, then became a tugboat captain in Houston for several years. Moe Tucker raised a family before returning to small-scale gigging and recording in the 1980s; Morrison was in several touring bands, including Tucker's band. Rock music Rock
5122-410: 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 ,
5319-486: 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
5516-589: 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
5713-557: A now-legendary nine-week residency (from June 24 – August 28, 1970) at the New York nightclub Max's Kansas City , playing two lengthy sets per night, and showcasing altered arrangements of older songs from their previous albums, as well as showcasing the new material that would soon make up Loaded . Reed's last live performance with the band at Max's was informally recorded and was released two years later in 1972 as Live at Max's Kansas City , also on Atlantic Records. Disillusioned with
5910-756: A number of these songs for his solo records over the years: "Stephanie Says", "Ocean", "I Can't Stand It", "Lisa Says", and "Andy's Chest", as well as "She's My Best Friend", which had been originally sung by Doug Yule. By 1969 the MGM and Verve record labels had been losing money for several years. A new president, Mike Curb , was hired and he decided to cancel the recording contracts of 18 of their acts who supposedly glorified drugs in their lyrics, including their many controversial and unprofitable acts. The drug or hippie -related bands were released from MGM; nonetheless MGM insisted on retaining ownership of all master tapes of their recordings and according to an MGM representative in
6107-459: 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
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6304-444: 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),
6501-418: A recording solely of pulsating audio feedback culminating in a locked groove , was "a precursor to [Reed's] Metal Machine Music ", say Velvets archivists M.C. Kostek and Phil Milstein in the book The Velvet Underground Companion . "Loop" also predates much industrial music . At Warhol's insistence, Nico sang with the band on three songs of their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico . The album
6698-523: A replacement for Walter De Maria , who had been a third member of the Primitives. Reed and Morrison both played guitars, Cale played viola, keyboards and bass and Angus MacLise joined on percussion to complete the initial four-member unit. This quartet was first called the Warlocks, then the Falling Spikes. The Velvet Underground by Michael Leigh was a contemporary mass market paperback about
6895-446: 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
7092-625: 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
7289-721: 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
7486-481: 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
7683-511: A stroboscopic-light show designed by Danny Williams. Because of the punishing lights, the band took to wearing sunglasses onstage. Early promo posters referred to the group as the "erupting plastic inevitable". This soon changed to "the exploding plastic inevitable". In 1966, MacLise temporarily rejoined the Velvet Underground for a few EPI shows when Reed was suffering from hepatitis and unable to perform. For these appearances, Cale sang and played organ, Tucker switched to bass guitar and MacLise
7880-561: A theater major, but left the program after one year to continue playing music. Yule had first seen the Velvets perform at a student event at Harvard University in Cambridge in early 1968, and when the band played at the Boston Tea Party later that year, the band stayed at Yule's apartment on River Street, which he happened to be renting from their road manager, Hans Onsager (who worked closely with their manager Steve Sesnick ). It
8077-464: 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
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8274-529: 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
8471-524: A vast range of lyrical subjects on the first two Velvet Underground albums, the lyrical themes of the third album were more "intimate" in nature. Reed's songwriting also covered new emotional ground as well, as heard in the songs " Pale Blue Eyes ", "Jesus", "Beginning to See the Light", and "I'm Set Free". The personal tone of the album's subject matter resulted in Reed's desire to create a "closet" mix that boosted
8668-508: A year. Tom Wilson at Verve/MGM only bought the album from me because of Nico. He saw no talent in Lou [Reed]." In 1982, Brian Eno said that while the album sold only 30,000 copies in its early years, "everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band." Filmmaker and music writer, Grant McPhee conducted a 2021 investigation into Eno's famous claim into the popularity of the band's first album and concluded that it may have sold as many as 200,000 copies by 1971 alone. Nico moved on after
8865-501: 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
9062-675: Is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll " in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles from the mid-1960s, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has its roots in rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the genres of blues , rhythm and blues , and country music . Rock also drew strongly from genres such as electric blues and folk , and incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock
9259-408: Is also the term for the part of a musical instrument intended to produce the drone effect's sustained pitch , generally without the ongoing attention of the player. Different melodic Indian instruments (e.g. the sitar , the sarod , the sarangi and the rudra veena ) contain a drone. For example, the sitar features three or four resonating drone strings, and Indian notes ( sargam ) are practiced to
9456-423: 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
9653-540: 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
9850-628: Is essentially drone-based. Shorter drones or the general concept of a continuous element are often used by many other composers. Other composers whose music is entirely based on drones include Charlemagne Palestine and Phill Niblock . The Immovable Do by Percy Grainger contains a sustained high C (heard in the upper woodwinds) that lasts for the entirety of the piece. Drone pieces also include Loren Rush 's Hard Music (1970) and Folke Rabe 's Was?? (1968), as well as Robert Erickson 's Down at Piraeus . The avant-garde guitarist Glenn Branca also used drones extensively. French singer Camille uses
10047-472: Is generally agreed that garage rock peaked both commercially and artistically around 1966. By 1968 the style largely disappeared from the national charts and at the local level as amateur musicians faced college, work or the draft . New styles had evolved to replace garage rock. Although the first impact of the British Invasion on American popular music was through beat and R&B based acts,
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#173277280624810244-555: 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
10441-411: 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
10638-508: Is played with the tanpura (or tambura ) and other Indian drone instruments like the ottu , the ektar , the dotara (or dotar; dutar in Persian Central Asia ), the surpeti , the surmandal (or swarmandal ) and the shankh (conch shell). Most of the types of bagpipes that exist worldwide have up to three drones, making this one of the first instruments that comes to mind when speaking of drone music. In America, most forms of
10835-399: 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
11032-437: Is the Band." Drone (music) "Of all harmonic devices, it [a drone] is not only the simplest, but probably also the most fertile." A drone effect can be achieved through a sustained sound or through repetition of a note. It most often establishes a tonality upon which the rest of the piece is built. A drone can be instrumental, vocal or both. Drone (both instrumental and vocal) can be placed in different ranges of
11229-535: 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
11426-524: 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
11623-415: The blues and blues-derived genres. Jerry Lee Lewis featured drones in solos and fills. Drones were virtually absent in original rock and roll music, but gained popularity after the Beatles used drones in a few popular compositions (for example, " Blackbird " has a drone in the middle of a texture throughout the whole song, " Tomorrow Never Knows " makes use of tambura ). They also used high drone for
11820-422: 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
12017-633: The pop artist Andy Warhol became their manager. They served as the house band at Warhol's studio, the Factory , and his traveling multimedia show, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable , from 1966 to 1967. Their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico , featuring the German singer and model Nico , was released in 1967 to critical indifference and poor sales but later drew widespread acclaim. They released three more albums:
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#173277280624812214-417: 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
12411-454: 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
12608-467: 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
12805-464: The 2001 box set Final V.U. After the brief European tour in November 1971 was finished, the lineup of Yule, Tucker, Alexander and Powers disbanded. In May 1972, Atlantic released Live at Max's Kansas City , the recording of the Velvet Underground's final performance with Reed (also with Doug Yule, Morrison, and Billy Yule) made by a fan, Brigid Polk , on August 23, 1970. Due to publicity around
13002-674: The African-influenced banjo contain a drone string. Since the 1960s, the drone has become a prominent feature in drone music and other forms of avant-garde music . In vocal music drone is particularly widespread in traditional musical cultures, particularly in Europe, Polynesia and Melanesia. It is also present in some isolated regions of Asia (like among Pearl-divers in the Persian Gulf, some national minorities of South-West China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Afghanistan). Drone
13199-477: 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
13396-572: 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
13593-617: The Byrds ' shift from folk to folk rock from 1965. The psychedelic lifestyle, which revolved around hallucinogenic drugs, had already developed in San Francisco and particularly prominent products of the scene were Big Brother and the Holding Company , the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane . The Jimi Hendrix Experience 's lead guitarist, Jimi Hendrix did extended distorted, feedback-filled jams which became
13790-431: 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
13987-594: 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,
14184-515: The Family Dog venues in San Francisco; recordings of these shows were released in 2001, as a triple live album, Bootleg Series Volume 1: The Quine Tapes , which included the line up of Reed, Yule, Morrison and Tucker. During 1969 the band recorded on and off in the studio, creating a lot of promising material (both singles and one-offs) that were never officially released at the time due to disputes with their record label. What many consider to be
14381-507: 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
14578-471: 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
14775-506: 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
14972-487: The LP, and a rare Moe Tucker lead vocal is used on "After Hours", which closes the album, because Reed felt her "innocent" voice was more believable for a sad song. The album contains the experimental track "The Murder Mystery", which utilized all four band members (Reed, Yule, Tucker and Morrison) reading different lyrics, sometimes simultaneously, as well as the ballad "Pale Blue Eyes". The Velvet Underground spent much of 1969 on
15169-503: 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
15366-476: 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
15563-542: The Rolling Stones . Nothing ever came of this, but the demo was eventually released on the 1995 box set Peel Slowly and See . Manager and music journalist Al Aronowitz arranged for the group's first paying gig—$ 75 ($ 725 in 2023 dollars) to play at Summit High School , in Summit, New Jersey, opening for the Myddle Class . When they decided to take the gig, MacLise abruptly left the group, protesting what he considered
15760-588: 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
15957-672: 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
16154-613: The Sunshine (1976) and Searching (1976)) which have a high sustained synth string note through most of their duration. Afrocentric acts influenced by Ayers like Acid Jazz or Neo-Soul tend to use this technique very often. compositions like Erykah Badu ’s “ Otherside of the Game ”, Slum Village ’s “Untitled/Fantastic” or Jamiroquai ’s “Everyday” (in a lower extent for that case) use a synthesized or acoustic high sustained string. Scott Walker - "It's Raining Today" from 1969's SCOTT 3 Uses
16351-676: 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
16548-619: 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
16745-543: The United States to study classical music upon securing a Leonard Bernstein scholarship. Cale had worked with experimental composers John Cage , Cornelius Cardew and La Monte Young , and had performed with Young's Theatre of Eternal Music , though was also interested in rock music. Young's use of extended drones would be a profound influence on the band's early sound. Cale was pleasantly surprised to discover that Reed's experimentalist tendencies were similar to his own: Reed sometimes used alternative guitar tunings to create
16942-404: The Velvet Underground for what would be its final studio album with Lou Reed: Loaded . The album's title refers to Atlantic's request that the band produce an album "loaded with hits". Though the record was not the smash hit the company had anticipated, it contains the most accessible pop the Velvet Underground had performed, and two of Reed's best-known songs, "Sweet Jane" and "Rock and Roll". By
17139-513: The Velvet Underground in different directions. The differences showed in the last recording sessions the band had with John Cale in 1968: three pop -like songs in Reed's direction ("Temptation Inside Your Heart", "Stephanie Says" and "Beginning to See the Light") and a viola-driven drone in Cale's direction ("Hey Mr. Rain"). Further, some songs the band had performed with Cale in concert, or that he had co-written, were not recorded until after he had left
17336-462: The Velvet Underground in late 1972, a band with him, Billy Yule, George Kay and guitarist Don Silverman (later known as Noor Khan) was incorrectly billed as the Velvet Underground for two shows in Boston and Long Island. The band members objected to the billing (instigated by their tour manager); according to Yule, the promoter was not supposed to bill the band as the Velvet Underground. In late May 1973,
17533-414: The Velvets severed their relationship with Andy Warhol. Reed once commented on their leaving Warhol: "He sat down and had a talk with me. 'You gotta decide what you want to do. Do you want to keep just playing museums from now on and the art festivals? Or do you want to start moving into other areas? Lou, don't you think you should think about it?' So I thought about it, and I fired him. Because I thought that
17730-751: 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
17927-444: The abrasive White Light/White Heat (1968), and the more accessible albums The Velvet Underground (1969) and Loaded (1970), with Doug Yule replacing Cale for the latter two. None performed to the expectations of record labels or Reed, the band's leader. However, like the band's debut, all albums later achieved critical acclaim. In the early 1970s, all but Yule left the band. Yule led an abortive UK tour in 1973, and released
18124-527: 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
18321-717: The airport that he was staying in Texas and quitting the band—the last founding member to quit. Morrison's replacement was singer/keyboard player Willie Alexander . This brief line-up of the band played several shows in the US and Canada in September 1971, and in October and November 1971 the band did several shows in England, Wales, and the Netherlands to support the 1971 European release of Loaded , some of which are collected on
18518-665: The album from November 1970 to August 1971, playing shows around the U.S. By this juncture, Sterling Morrison had received his degree from the City College of New York. Following a show in Houston, Texas , he left the group in August 1971 to pursue a Ph.D. in medieval literature at the University of Texas at Austin . He had packed an empty suitcase and when the time came for the band to return to New York City , he told them at
18715-414: The album purely as a money ploy. "Sesnick dumped the second iteration of the band in England with no money and no equipment and just left us there to find our way back. He gave me six copies of Squeeze as pay. I never got any money. When you sign with ASCAP or BMI you get an advance. He not only made an arrangement with them but actually signed as me and took the money." Despite the negative reviews of
18912-402: The album upon its initial release, in recent years the album has been revisited by both critics and musicians with more sympathetic and favorable reviews. In 2011 music writer Steven Shehori included Squeeze in his "Criminally Overlooked Albums" series for The Huffington Post , and in a lengthy review of the album, offered the following positive assessment of Squeeze : "if you pluck it from
19109-403: The band and that Reed had been aware of most, if not all, of the edits. With manager Steve Sesnick looking to fill bookings (following the departure of Lou Reed), and with the pending release of Loaded in November 1970, the band, now with Sterling Morrison on guitar, Moe Tucker on drums, Walter Powers on bass, and Doug Yule taking over lead vocals and guitar, played periodic shows to promote
19306-565: The band and the tour manager parted ways, thus bringing the Velvet Underground to an end until the classic line-up of Reed, Tucker, Morrison and Cale reunited in the 1990s. Reed, Cale and Nico teamed up at the beginning of 1972 to play a concert in Paris at the Bataclan club . This concert was bootlegged, and finally received an official release as Le Bataclan '72 in 2003. Before that, Cale and Nico had developed solo careers, with Cale producing
19503-507: The band asked her to do something unusual, she turned her bass drum on its side and played standing up. After her drums were stolen from one club, she replaced them with garbage cans brought in from outside. Her rhythms, at once simple and exotic (influenced by the likes of Babatunde Olatunji and Bo Diddley as well as Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones), became a vital part of the group's music, despite Cale's initial objections to
19700-412: The band to get an endorsement deal with Vox to enable them to use Vox equipment, including special effects pedals and an organ, for free. Sterling Morrison believed they were the first American band to get a Vox endorsement. Sterling Morrison offered the following input regarding the recording: There was fantastic leakage 'cause everyone was playing so loud and we had so much electronic junk with us in
19897-499: The band was scheduled to take the stage the following night before notifying him that Reed was not coming. "I was expecting [Lou] to show up, I thought he was late." Yule blamed Sesnick for Reed's departure. "Sesnick had engineered Lou's leaving the group. He and Lou had a relationship where Lou had depended on him for moral support, and he trusted him, and Sesnick basically said 'screw you.' ... It must have been hard for Lou to hear that because he depended on him, so he quit." While Loaded
20094-632: The band with his show in an effort to "use rock as a part of a larger, interdisciplinary-art work based around performance" (McDonald). They played shows for several months in New York City, then traveled throughout the United States and Canada until its last installment in May 1967. During a short period in September 1966, when Cale was ill, the avant-garde musician Henry Flynt and Reed's friend Richard Mishkin took turns to cover for him. The show included 16 mm film projections by Warhol, combined with
20291-596: The band with the necessary equipment and tour funds, they played the handful of dates to secure enough money for flights back to the US, and Yule left the band when the brief tour ended in December 1972. It was during this brief period in the UK that Yule recorded the Polydor album (ultimately titled Squeeze ) under the Velvet Underground name virtually by himself, with only the assistance of Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice and
20488-423: The beginning of a new age" as sung by Yule) was repeated many more times. A brief interlude in "Rock and Roll" was also removed. (For the 1995 box set Peel Slowly and See , the album was presented as Reed intended; the "Fully Loaded" two-disc edition includes the full versions of "Sweet Jane" and "New Age".) On the other hand, Yule has pointed out that the album was for all intents and purposes finished when Reed left
20685-585: 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
20882-461: The chart. Their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964, drawing an estimated 73 million viewers (at the time a record for an American television program) is considered a milestone in American pop culture. During the week of 4 April 1964, the Beatles held 12 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the entire top five. The Beatles went on to become
21079-543: The club La Cave. Upon meeting Reed, Sesnick and Morrison at Max's, Yule was asked to handle bass and organ duties in the band, and he would soon contribute vocals as well. After several months of shows in the US, the band swiftly recorded their third album The Velvet Underground in late 1968 at TTG Studios in Hollywood, California . It was released in March 1969. The cover photograph was taken by Billy Name . The LP sleeve
21276-424: 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
21473-463: The double album. In his notes, Murphy described a scene 100 years in the future, with a student taking a class on "classical rock'n'roll" and listening to the Velvet Underground. He wondered what the student would make of the music and concluded, "I wish it was a hundred years from today (I can't stand the suspense)". During this period the band played a series of shows in November 1969 at the Matrix and
21670-493: The dramatic effect in some sections of several of their compositions (like the last verses of " Yesterday " and " Eleanor Rigby "). rock band U2 uses drones in their compositions particularly widely. In the Led Zeppelin song " In The Light ", a keyboard drone is used throughout the song, mostly in the intro. American musician Roy Ayers used this technique in most of his repertoire. Examples being Everybody Loves
21867-400: The drone". In July 1965, Reed, Cale and Morrison recorded a demo tape at their Ludlow Street loft without MacLise, because he refused to be tied down to a schedule and would turn up to band practice sessions only when he wanted. When he briefly returned to Britain, Cale attempted to give a copy of the tape to Marianne Faithfull , hoping she would pass it on to Mick Jagger , lead singer of
22064-455: 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
22261-460: 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,"
22458-462: 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
22655-519: 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
22852-500: The energy and the electronics, but we didn't know it couldn't be recorded...what we were trying to do was really fry the tracks. Cale has said that while the debut had some moments of fragility and beauty, White Light/White Heat was "consciously anti-beauty". The title track sets a harsh opening; bassist Cale overdubbing a piano that has been described as "a cross between Jerry Lee Lewis and Henry Cowell ". Along with brash songs like " Sister Ray " and " I Heard Her Call My Name ", there
23049-581: 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
23246-498: 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
23443-455: 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
23640-477: The following year, 1973, in Europe only, with minimal promotion by the label, and was held in low regard by fans and critics. Stephen Thomas Erlewine notes that the album received "uniformly terrible reviews" upon initial release, and in the early 1970s, the NME Book of Rock counted it as "a Velvet Underground album in name only". When asked about Squeeze , Yule hinted that band manager Steve Sesnick orchestrated
23837-548: The following: The best-known drone piece in the concert repertory is the Prelude to Wagner 's Das Rheingold (1854) wherein low horns and bass instruments sustain an E ♭ throughout the entire movement. The atmospheric ostinato effect that opens Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which inspired similar gestures in the opening of all the symphonies of Anton Bruckner , represents a gesture derivative of drones. One consideration for composers of common practice keyboard music
24034-513: 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
24231-591: The group (such as "Walk It and Talk It", "Ride into the Sun", and "Countess from Hong Kong"). Reed called Morrison and Tucker to a meeting at the Riviera Cafe in the West Village without Cale's knowledge, and informed them that Cale was out of the band; when Morrison objected, Reed said it was either Cale was sacked or the Velvets were dissolved. Neither Morrison nor Tucker was happy with the idea, but faced with
24428-670: The group, " All Tomorrow's Parties ". Kurt Loder would later describe "All Tomorrow's Parties" as a "mesmerizing gothic-rock masterpiece". Closing out the album was the avant-garde " The Black Angel's Death Song ", followed by the lengthy, feedback-laden " European Son ", which Reed dedicated to his Syracuse professor Delmore Schwartz . The overall sound was propelled by Reed and Nico's deadpan vocals, Cale's droning viola, bass and keyboards, Reed's experimental avant-garde guitar, Morrison's often R&B - or country -influenced guitar, and Tucker's simple but steady and tribal-sounding beat with sparse use of cymbals. A technique used on many songs
24625-606: The impetus for minimalism through the music of La Monte Young and many of his students qualify as drones. David First , the band Coil , the early experimental compilations of John Cale ( Sun Blindness Music , Dream Interpretation , and Stainless Gamelan ), Pauline Oliveros and Stuart Dempster , Alvin Lucier ( Music On A Long Thin Wire ), Ellen Fullman , Lawrence Chandler and Arnold Dreyblatt all make notable use of drones. The music of Italian composer Giacinto Scelsi
24822-458: 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
25019-471: The influence of the new equipment. Morrison's ringing guitar parts and Yule's melodic bass guitar and harmony vocals are used prominently on the album. Reed's songs and singing are subdued and confessional in nature, and he shared lead vocals with Yule, particularly when his own voice would fail under stress. Doug Yule sang the lead vocal on "Candy Says" (about the Warhol superstar Candy Darling ), which opens
25216-467: 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
25413-517: 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
25610-512: The lack of progress the band was making, and facing pressure by manager Steve Sesnick , Reed decided to quit the band during the last week of the Max's Kansas City shows in August 1970. Although Reed had informed Tucker, who was attending the show but not playing with the band because of her pregnancy, that he planned to leave the group on his last evening, he did not tell Morrison or Yule. In a 2006 interview, Yule said Sesnick waited until one hour before
25807-446: 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
26004-493: The live shows the band played during this period would end up released as live albums many years later. The live album 1969: The Velvet Underground Live (with Reed, Yule, Morrison & Tucker) was recorded in October 1969 but not released until 1974, on Mercury Records, at the urging of rock critic Paul Nelson , who worked in A&;R for Mercury at the time. Nelson asked singer-songwriter Elliott Murphy to write liner notes for
26201-410: 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
26398-476: 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
26595-474: The marketplace. The album was re-distributed at nearly the same time as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in June 1967, which further hindered the release. Regarding MGM/Verve's delay in releasing the album, Warhol's business manager Paul Morrissey once offered the following: "Verve/MGM didn't know what to do with The Velvet Underground and Nico because it was so peculiar. They did not release it for almost
26792-674: 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,
26989-609: 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
27186-479: 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
27383-435: 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
27580-401: 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
27777-432: The most influential bands in rock, underground , experimental , and alternative music. Their provocative subject matter, experimentation, and nihilistic attitude were also instrumental in the development of punk rock , new wave and several other genres. The group performed under several names before settling on the Velvet Underground in 1965, taken from the title of a 1963 book on atypical sexual behavior . In 1966,
27974-465: 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
28171-608: 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
28368-530: The next album with the amplifiers underwater, and [Lou] just couldn't have it. He was trying to make the band more accessible." Ultimately, Morrison was dispatched by Reed to tell Cale that he was out of the band. Before work on their third album started, Cale was replaced by musician Doug Yule of the Boston group the Grass Menagerie, who had been a close associate of the band. Yule, a native New Yorker, had moved to Boston to attend Boston University as
28565-459: The polyphonic texture: in the lowest part, in the highest part, or in the middle. The drone is most often placed upon the tonic or dominant (play "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" with a drone on the tonic , on the dominant , or on both . Compare with changing chords .). A drone on the same pitch as a melodic note tends to both hide that note and to bring attention to it by increasing its importance. A drone differs from
28762-531: The presence of a female drummer. The group earned a regular paying gig at the Café Bizarre and gained an early reputation as a promising ensemble. In 1965, after being introduced to the Velvet Underground by filmmaker Barbara Rubin , Andy Warhol became the band's manager and suggested they use the German-born singer Nico (born Christa Päffgen) on several songs. Warhol's reputation helped the band gain
28959-401: The prime songs of these recording sessions were released years later, in 1985, in a compilation album called VU . The album VU marks the transitional sound between the whisper-soft third album and the band's movement to the later pop rock song-style of their final record, Loaded . Two of the songs the Velvets recorded during this period were later used on film soundtracks: "Stephanie Says"
29156-471: 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
29353-411: The recording of Loaded , Doug Yule played a more prominent role in the band, and with Reed's encouragement, sang the lead vocal on four songs: "Who Loves the Sun", which opened the album, "New Age", "Lonesome Cowboy Bill" and the final track, "Oh! Sweet Nuthin". Yule once commented on the recording of Loaded : "Lou leaned on me a lot in terms of musical support and for harmonies, vocal arrangements. I did
29550-653: 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
29747-619: The release, and growing interest in the Velvet Underground in Europe, Sesnick was able to secure a single album deal with Polydor in the UK, and a handful of promotional shows were booked in the UK in November and December 1972. After Sesnick reached out to Yule, a new Velvet Underground lineup was quickly assembled by Yule to do the UK shows. This brief lineup of the Velvet Underground consisted of Yule, guitarist Rob Norris (later of The Bongos ), bassist George Kay (Krzyzewski), and drummer Mark Nauseef . After Sesnick failed to show up in London to meet
29944-400: The rise of rock and roll in the US, found new popularity in the UK, visiting with successful tours. Lonnie Donegan 's 1955 hit " Rock Island Line " was a major influence and helped to develop the trend of skiffle music groups throughout the country, many of which, including John Lennon 's Quarrymen (later the Beatles ), moved on to play rock and roll. While former rock and roll market in
30141-547: The road both in the US and Canada, and not making much headway commercially. Despite these commercial setbacks, the band focused on performing live shows on the road, playing both re-worked songs from their past albums, and debuting new songs that would find their way onto the Loaded album, such as "New Age", "Rock and Roll", and "Sweet Jane". While the band continued to do extended improvisations in their live shows, by 1969 they were focusing on tight live performances, and several of
30338-475: 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
30535-522: 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
30732-417: The same name , which dealt with masochism. The band immediately and unanimously adopted "The Velvet Underground" as its new name in November 1965. The newly named Velvet Underground rehearsed and performed in New York City. Their music was generally much more relaxed than it would later become: Cale described this era as reminiscent of beat poetry, with MacLise playing gentle "pitter and patter rhythms behind
30929-499: The same note as that which the first string produces when played at the fifth fret. The bass strings of the Slovenian drone zither also freely resonate as a drone. The Welsh Crwth also features two drone strings. Composers of Western classical music occasionally used a drone (especially one on open fifths) to evoke a rustic or archaic atmosphere, perhaps echoing that of Scottish or other early or folk music . Examples include
31126-555: 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
31323-478: The secret sexual subculture of the early 1960s; Cale's friend and Dream Syndicate associate Tony Conrad showed it to the group, and MacLise made a suggestion to adopt the title as the band's name. According to Reed and Morrison, the group liked the name, considering it evocative of "underground cinema", and fitting, as Reed had already written " Venus in Furs ", a song inspired by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch 's book of
31520-522: The sessions, Sterling Morrison resumed his undergraduate studies at the City College of New York . Although he contributed guitar tracks to the album, he began to split his time between classes, the sessions and the gigs at Max's, thus leaving Reed and Yule to handle the bulk of the arrangements. It was during the Loaded recording sessions that the Velvets (with Billy Yule deputizing on drums) secured
31717-448: The shackles of its murky back-story, Squeeze is nothing short of a quintessential listening experience." The UK band Squeeze took their name from its title according to band member Chris Difford , who offered the following opinion of the album in a 2012 interview: "It's an odd record, but the name came from that, definitely. ... In a retrospective way I really enjoy it. It has kind of a naivety about it." Although Yule had put an end to
31914-498: 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
32111-413: 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
32308-412: The songs "Rock and Roll" and "Sweet Jane") since Moe Tucker (who was erroneously credited as the album's drummer, despite not playing on it) was absent on maternity leave to have her first child, a daughter named Kerry. Other drum parts were performed by engineer Adrian Barber , session musician Tommy Castanaro, and Billy Yule (Doug Yule's younger brother), who was still in high school at the time. During
32505-412: The studio—all these fuzzers and compressors. Gary Kellgren , who is ultra-competent, told us repeatedly: "You can't do it—all the needles are on red." and we reacted as we always reacted: "Look, we don't know what goes on in there and we don't want to hear about it. Just do the best you can." And so the album is fuzzy, there's all that white noise...we wanted to do something electronic and energetic. We had
32702-615: The three-octave voice of Annie Haslam . Most British bands depended on a relatively small cult following, but a handful, including Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Jethro Tull, managed to produce top ten singles at home and break the American market. The American brand of progressive rock varied from the eclectic and innovative Frank Zappa , Captain Beefheart and Blood, Sweat & Tears , to more pop rock orientated bands like Boston , Foreigner , Kansas , Journey , and Styx . These, beside British bands Supertramp and ELO , all demonstrated
32899-420: The tip. Those who did remove the banana skin found a pink, peeled banana beneath. Eleven songs showcased the Velvets' dynamic range, veering from the pounding attacks of " I'm Waiting for the Man " and " Run Run Run ", the droning "Venus in Furs" and " Heroin ", the chiming and celestial "Sunday Morning", to the quiet " Femme Fatale " and the tender " I'll Be Your Mirror ", as well as Warhol's own favorite song of
33096-409: 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
33293-550: The vocals to the forefront, while reducing the album's instrumentation. The second (and more widely distributed) mix is the stereo mix done by MGM/Verve staff recording engineer Val Valentin. Another factor in the change of sound was the band's Vox amplifiers and assorted fuzzboxes were rumored to have been stolen from an airport while they were on tour and they obtained replacements by signing a new endorsement deal with Sunn . In addition, Reed and Morrison had purchased matching Fender 12-string electric guitars , but Doug Yule plays down
33490-418: 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
33687-533: 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
33884-404: 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
34081-462: 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
34278-474: Was equal temperament . The adjustments lead to slight mistunings as heard against a sustained drone. Even so, drones have often been used to spotlight dissonance purposefully. Modern concert musicians make frequent use of drones, often with just or other non-equal tempered tunings. Drones are a regular feature in the music of composers indebted to the chant tradition, such as Arvo Pärt , Sofia Gubaidulina , and John Tavener . The single-tones that provided
34475-426: Was "arguably the most influential American rock band of our time". The foundations for what would become the Velvet Underground were laid in late 1964. Singer-songwriter and guitarist Lou Reed had performed with a few short-lived garage bands and had worked as a songwriter for Pickwick Records (Reed described his tenure there as being "a poor man's Carole King "). Reed met John Cale , a Welshman who had moved to
34672-460: 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
34869-473: 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
35066-424: 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
35263-435: Was creative tension between Reed and Cale, its effects have been exaggerated over the years. Cale played his last show with the band at the Boston Tea Party in September 1968 and was fired shortly afterwards. According to Michael Carlucci, a friend of Robert Quine , "Lou told Quine that the reason why he had to get rid of Cale in the band was Cale's ideas were just too out there. Cale had some wacky ideas. He wanted to record
35460-417: Was designed by Dick Smith, then a staff artist at MGM/Verve. Released on March 12, 1969, the album failed to make Billboard' s Top 200 album chart. The harsh, abrasive tendencies on the first two records were almost entirely absent on their third album. This resulted in a gentler sound influenced by folk music , prescient of the songwriting style that would soon form Reed's solo career. While Reed had covered
35657-410: Was during this period that Morrison heard Yule playing guitar in his apartment, and mentioned to Reed that Yule was practicing guitar and was improving quickly. It was following this discussion that led to a phone call from Steve Sesnick inviting Yule to meet with the band at Max's Kansas City in New York City in October 1968 to discuss joining the Velvets before two upcoming shows in Cleveland, Ohio, at
35854-441: Was finalized and mixed, it had yet to be mastered and was not set to be released by Atlantic until November of that year. Reed often said he was completely surprised when he saw Loaded in stores. He also said, "I left them to their album full of hits that I made". Reed was perturbed about a verse being edited from the Loaded version of " Sweet Jane ". " New Age " was changed as well: as originally recorded, its closing line ("It's
36051-449: 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
36248-454: Was on drums. Also at these appearances, the band often played an extended jam they had dubbed "Booker T", after musician Booker T. Jones . Some of these performances have been released as a bootleg ; they remain the only record of MacLise with the Velvet Underground. According to Morrison, MacLise is said to have regretted leaving the Velvet Underground and wanted to rejoin, but Reed specifically prohibited this and made it clear that this stint
36445-629: Was one of the things to do if we were going to move away from that…" Steve Sesnick was soon brought in as a replacement manager, much to the chagrin of Cale, who believes that Sesnick tried to push Reed as band leader at the expense of band harmony. Both Cale and Reed called Sesnick a "snake" in different interviews after leaving the band. In September 1967, the Velvet Underground began recording their second album, White Light/White Heat , with Tom Wilson as producer. The band performed live often, and their performances became louder and harsher and often included extended improvisations . Warhol arranged for
36642-465: Was only temporary. MacLise still behaved eccentrically with time and commerce and went by his own clock: for instance, he showed up half an hour late to one show and carried on with a half-hour of drumming to compensate for his late arrival, long after the set had finished. In December 1966, Warhol and David Dalton designed Issue 3 of the multimedia Aspen . Included in this issue of the "magazine", which retailed at $ 4 ($ 38 in 2023 dollars) per copy and
36839-436: Was packaged in a hinged box designed to look like Fab laundry detergent, were various leaflets and booklets, one of which was a commentary on rock and roll by Lou Reed, another an EPI promotional newspaper. Also enclosed was a 2-sided flexi disk : side one produced by Peter Walker , a musical associate of Timothy Leary ; and side two titled "Loop", credited to the Velvet Underground but actually recorded by Cale alone. "Loop",
37036-444: Was recorded primarily in Scepter Studios in New York City during April 1966, but for reasons unclear, some songs were rerecorded at TTG Studios in Los Angeles , along with the new song " Sunday Morning ", later in the year with Tom Wilson producing. The album was released by Verve Records the following year in March 1967. The album cover is famous for its Warhol design: a yellow banana sticker with "Peel slowly and see" printed near
37233-399: Was released on March 12, 1967 (after a lengthy delay by Verve), and reached No. 171 on Billboard magazine's Top 200 charts. The commercial growth of the album was hampered by a legal claim: as the album's back cover included a photo of the group on stage with an unauthorized image projected behind them of actor Eric Emerson from a Warhol motion picture, Chelsea Girls , Emerson made
37430-411: 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
37627-548: 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,
37824-408: Was the "drone strum", an eighth-note rhythm guitar style used by Reed. Although Cale was the band's usual bassist, if he switched to viola or keyboards, Morrison would normally play bass. Despite his proficiency on the instrument, Morrison hated playing bass. Conversely, some songs had Reed and Morrison playing their usual guitars with Cale on viola or keyboards, but with nobody playing bass. The album
38021-474: Was the darkly comic " The Gift ", a short story written by Reed and narrated by Cale in his deadpan Welsh accent . The meditative "Here She Comes Now" was later covered by Galaxie 500 , Cabaret Voltaire , and Nirvana , among others. The album was released on January 30, 1968, entering the Billboard Top 200 chart for two weeks, at number 199. Tensions were growing: the group was tired of receiving little recognition for its work, and Reed and Cale were pulling
38218-439: 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,
38415-430: 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
38612-400: 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
38809-403: Was used in the 2001 film The Royal Tenenbaums ; "I'm Sticking With You" has a rare Moe Tucker–Lou Reed dual-lead vocal track, with Doug Yule accompanying on piano, and was included in the film Juno . The rest of the recordings, as well as some alternative takes and instrumental tracks were later bundled on Another View which was released in 1986. After Reed's departure, he later reworked
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