Final Exam (90s - 2000s) Flashcards
Music Industry in the Early 90s (think Nirvana)
Lines blurred between margins and mainstream (popular music in a wide variety of genres)
- Being ‘outsider’ = key to promotion!
- Produces some of the most popular singles ever (though singles declining)
Earliest Hip Hop Breakout
Rapper’s Delight (Sugarhill Gang) → “Hip-hop, hippity hop” and The Message (Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five) → “it’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under”
- First to perform in neighborhoods beyond their own
- Begin the tradition to building individual style
Rockit (Herbie Hancock)
Jazz-Hip Hop fusion
- Hip Hop = record scratching
***Synth-riff (ba bum, ba bum↑, ba bum↑,bum↓, ba)
I Feel For You (Chaka Khan)
Soul-Hip Hop fusion
- Hip Hop = rap, vocal sampling, chromatic harmonica
** Prince Cover with Melle Mel feature (Grandmaster)
**”Chaka Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan”
Raising Hell (Run-D.M.C)
Rock-Hip Hop fusion
- Hip-Hop = rap
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (Public Enemy)
Marks rap coming into it’s own genre (opposed to fusion with other genre)
Run-D.M.C. (DJ Run & Easy D)
Rock-Hip Hop fusion
- Signature style: complete each other’s lines!
- Appealed to young, white, rock audience
- Essential to clothing in Hip Hop culture (chains, fedoras, Adidas with no laces)
Walk This Way (Run-D.M.C. & Aerosmith)
- From Raising Hell (most platinum selling rap album ever!)
‘Calculated’ Crossover in all 3 modes:
1. Aural: Run-D.M.C. (verses) and Aerosmith (chorus)
2. Textual: sexual content
3. Visual: fusion symbolized when Steven Tyler breaks down wall in MV
***Drum sample → turntable scratches → guitar riff
Public Enemy (Chuck D & Flava Flav)
Hip Hop with socially engaged rap + artistic sampling
- Dense textures created by production team = Bomb Squad
Night of the Living Baseheads (Public Enemy)
– From It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (also platinum selling)
Quintessential Public Enemy track
Socially engaged theme: crack cocaine epidemic → turning people into zombies!
- Scolding black dealers for victimizing their own community
- Sampling: Black Panther leader (Khalid Abdul Muhammad) and 13 other ‘sound’ samples throughout
- World Play: dope, bass (VS free base), night of the living dead
***Airhorn sound on backbeat (2 & 4)
Hardcore Punk Rock
Variant of Punk movement, originating in West Coast clubs
- Fast tempo/mosh pits (slam dancing)
- Screamed lyrics
- Chaotic wall of sound
Holiday in Cambodia (Dead Kennedys)
Quintessential Hardcore Punk Rock
- Theme: anti-establishment, critique of hypocritical rich suburban kids (think their life is hard, though they know nothing of true suffering)
- Kids should grasp the meaningless of their own problems by taking a trip to Cambodia (forced labor camps)
- Frantic percussion, violent guitar sounds
***Menacing guitar riff, “It’s a holiday in Cambodia, it’s tough kid but its life”
Grunge Rock
Alt. Rock becomes mainstream
Nirvana
Quintessential grunge rock; blend of hardcore punk (gritty) with heavy metal (clean)
- Appealed to the mainstream (irony!)
Nevermind (Nirvana)
Album which attracted commercial success for the band; displaced Michael Jackson’s comeback album
- Fame ‘destroyed’ them (no longer an anti-establishment band)
Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)
- From Nevermind
Heavy metal texture + pop technique (songwriting includes verbal/melodic hooks)
- Texture creates distinct sections
Ani DiFranco
Singer-Songwriter with an alt-rock edge
- Do-it-yourself model of punk independence → own record label “Righteous Babe Records”
Ani DiFranco Style
- Progressive themes
- Rebellious musical energy
Not a Pretty Girl (Ani DiFranco)
Quintessential folk with alt-rock edge
- Minimalist instrumental texture (alt-rock) → puts voice at forefront
- Theme: America’s treatment of women as stereotypes vs. people (based on man who wronged her)
***”I am not a pretty girl”
Lauryn Hill
Rap evolutionist in during 90s
- Began career in hip hop trio, the Fugees, then went solo
- Had a hit single with “Killing Me Softly” cove
Lauryn Hill Style
Blend of rap, reggae, R&B
1. Focused on self aware, socially conscious themes (vs. violence & sexism focused on by other rappers)
2.Commitment to female empowerment
Doo Wop - That Thing (Lauryn Hill)
- From The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (multi-platinum)
Quintessential Lauryn Hill style (specifically rap and R&B) → important contribution to hip hop!
- R&B: soulful vocal, 4-part harmony, horns
- Rap: socially conscious lyrics, digital groove
- Theme: observation of male and female behavior, desire for materialism and (easy) pleasure)
K.D. Lang
90s country star
- Began as a Patsy Cline imitator (Nashville sound)
- Break through with Angel with a Lariat in late 80s→ honkey tonk sound
- Transitioned to adult contemporary sound in 90s
K.D. Lang Style
- Campy, androgynous image (rebellious for conservative country!)
- Rich, easy sounding vocals
Nowhere to Stand (K.D. Lang)
Reminiscent of K.D.’s country roots
- Traditional musical form (verse, chorus, repeat)
- ‘Alternative’ lyrics = critique of traditional practices of child abuse
***”A Family tradition, the strength of this land”