Upload
annabelle-edwards
View
678
Download
0
Tags:
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Genre Research
Indie Electronic Rock (Indietronica)
“Indietronica (also called Indie electronic) is a music genre that combines indie, electronica, rock
and pop music. Typical instruments used in indietronica
music are the electric keyboard, synthesizer, sampler, software synthesizer, MIDI
controller, and drum machine. It is also closely related to the
relatively less electronic and more acoustic Chillwave (glo-fi)
movement.”
Wikipedia definition
To understand the genre and its key features in more detail, we need to go back and look at its origins. To do this, we are going to break down the genre into two and look at the history of both electronic music and then indie rock individually until they merged in the early 1990’s.
Electro MusicElectro is a genre of electronic dance music directly influenced by the use of TR-808 drum machines and funk sampling. Records in the genre typically feature drum machines and heavy electronic sounds, usually without vocals, although if vocals are present they are delivered in a deadpan manner, often through electronic distortion such as vocoding and talkboxing.
Indie Rock MusicThe term indie rock, derived from "independent," describes the small and relatively low-budget labels on which it is released and the do-it-yourself attitude of the bands and artists involved. The influences and styles of the artists has been extremely diverse including punk, psychadelia, rock and country.
Examples of some electronic instruments The Telharmonium-was an early electronic musical instrument, developed by Thaddeus Cahill in 1897.. The tones are "clear and pure”
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934, In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s the distinctive sound of the B-3 organ was widely used in blues, progressive rock bands and blues-rock groups
An Electric guitar is a guitar that uses a pickup to convert the vibration of its strings into electrical impulses.
The Theremin is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact from the player. Theremins and theremin-like sounds started to be incorporated into popular music from the end of the 1940s
A Sound synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing a wide range of sound. The emergence of Synthpop, a sub-genre of New Wave, in the late 1970s can be largely credited to synthesizer technology
Electronic music
Electronic music dates all the way back to the 1920’s up until the present day. This
however includes all music that uses
electronic instruments, electro music is slightly
different.
In the late 1960s, pop and rock musicians, including The Beach Boys and The Beatles, began to use electronic instruments, like the theremin and Mellotron. By the end of the decade, the Moog synthesizer took a leading place in the sound of emerging progressive rock with bands including Pink Floyd, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and Genesis making them part of their sound.These developments led to the growth of synthpop, which after it was adopted by the New Romantic movement, allowed synthesizers to dominate the pop and rock music of the early 80s. Key acts included Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, A Flock of Seagulls, Culture Club, Talk Talk and the Eurythmics. Synthpop sometimes used synthesizers to replace all other instruments until the style began to fall from popularity in the mid-1980s.
Electronic music origins
Following the decline of disco music in the late 1970s, various funk artists such as Zapp & Roger began experimenting with talk boxes and the use of heavier, more distinctive beats.
Electro eventually emerged as a fusion of different styles, including funk and disco combined with German and Japanese electropop, in addition to influences from the futurism of Alvin Toffler, martial arts films, and video game music.
The genre's immediate forbearers included Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), and Gary Numan.
In 1980, YMO was the first band to utilize the TR-808 programmable drum machine. That same year, YMO member Ryuichi Sakamoto released "Riot in Lagos", which is regarded as an early example of electro music, and is credited for having anticipated the beats and sounds of electro
1982, proved a prolific year in electro with releases by artists including Planet Patrol, Warp 9,Man Parrish,, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Tyrone Brunson, The Jonzun Crew and Whodini.
By the late 1980s, the genre had parted from its initial funk influences.
Electro music
The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer was one of the first
programmable drum machines Introduced by the Roland Corporation in early 1980, it was
originally manufactured for use as a tool for studio musicians to
create demos but became a focal part of the wider genre.
From its inception, one of the defining characteristics of the electro sound was the use of drum machines, particularly the Roland TR-808, as the rhythmic basis of the track. As the genre evolved, computers and sampling replaced drum machines in electronic music, and are now used by the majority of electro producers.
The Roland TR-808 drum machine hit the market in 1980, defining early electro with its immediately recognizable sound. The Roland TR-808 has attained iconic status, eventually being used on more hits than any other drum machine.
Other electro instrumentation was generally electronic, favoring analog synthesis, programmed bass lines, sequenced or arpeggiated synthetic riffs, and atonal sound effects all created with synthesizers.
Most electro is instrumental, but a common element is vocals processed through a vocoder. Additionally, speech synthesis may be used to create robotic or mechanical lyrical conten.
There are many types of Electro for instance, Detroit techno DJ Eddie Fowlkes shaped a style called electro-soul in the 1980’s, which was characterized by a predominant bass line and a chopped up electro breakbeat contrasted with soulful male vocals.
Genre features
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 occasionally that of keyboard player or other instrumentalist.
Indie Rock
Individual rock can incorporate many genres
however has become more specialised in
recent years.
(typical rock band example) Led Zeppelin - The band consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham.
The genre saw its growth in popularity through the development of the electric guitar in the 1950’s. The use of distortion, pioneered by electric blues guitarists such as Guitar Slim, Willie Johnson and Pat Hare in the early 1950s, was popularized by Chuck Berry in the mid-1950s.
By the end of 1962, what would become the British rock scene had started with beat groups like The Beatles, Freddie and the Dreamers, and The Hollies. They drew on a wide range of American influences including soul, rhythm and blues and surf music.
Bands like The Animals and The Rolling Stones, were much more directly influenced by rhythm and blues and later blues music.
From here the rock genre expanded dramatically into many different sub genres for instance, Grunge, Psychedelic, Blues rock, Folk rock, New wave, Progressive etc.
Wider Rock History
Rock music is a genre of popular music that originated as "rock and
roll" in the United States in the 1950s, and developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and
later, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States
In the mid-1980s, the term "indie" began to be used to describe the music produced on post-punk labels rather than the labels themselves. The indie rock scene in the US was anticipated by the college rock that dominated college radio playlists, which included key bands like R.E.M. from the US and The Smiths from the UK. These bands rejected the dominant synthpop of the early 1980s. In the United States, the term was particularly associated with the abrasive, distortion-heavy sounds of the Pixies, Minutemen, Meat Puppets and The Replacements. A number of prominent indie rock record labels were founded during the 1980s.
The 1990s brought major changes to the alternative rock scene. Grunge bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains broke into the mainstream, achieving commercial chart success and widespread exposure. Punk revival bands like Green Day and The Offspring also became popular and were grouped under the "alternative" umbrella. Similarly, in the United Kingdom Britpop saw bands like Blur and Oasis emerge into the mainstream, abandoning the regional, small-scale and political elements of the 1980s indie scene.
As a result of these changes the term "alternative" lost its original counter-cultural meaning and began to refer to the new, commercially lighter form of music that was now achieving mainstream success.
In the 2000s, the changing music industry, allowed a new wave of indie rock bands to achieve mainstream success.
Indie Rock Origins
The influences and styles of the artists has been extremely diverse, including punk, psychedelia rock and country. The terms "alternative rock" and "indie rock" were used interchangeably in the 1980s, but after many alternative bands followed Nirvana into the mainstream in the early 1990s, "indie rock" began to be used to describe those bands, working in a variety of styles, that did not pursue or achieve commercial success.
Allmusic identifies indie rock as including a number of "varying musical approaches [not] compatible with mainstream tastes". Linked by an ethos more than a musical approach, the indie rock movement encompassed a wide range of styles, from hard-edged, grunge-influenced bands, do-it-yourself experimental bands like Pavement, to punk-folk singers such as Ani DiFranco. Many countries have developed an extensive local indie scene, flourishing with bands with enough popularity to survive inside the respective country, but virtually unknown elsewhere.
The term “indie” developed to describe many other fashionable elements such as clothing and hobbies.
Indie Rock is a wide genre and
full of a variety of different styles
Big names such as the famous magazine NME launched the Indie
Rock tour which brought a number of bands together.
Following is a clip of some of footage from this tour.
"The hottest NME tipped indie bands live across the UK!"
INDIETRONICA
“Indietronica (also called Indie electronic) is a music genre that
combines indie, electronica, rock and pop music. Typical
instruments used in indietronica music are the electronic
keyboard, synthesizer, sampler, software synthesizer, MIDI controller,
and drum machine. It is also closely related to the relatively less
electronic and more acoustic Chillwave (glo-fi)
movement”
Indietronica began in the early 1990s with bands like Stereolab and Disco Inferno. It took off in the new millennium as digital technology developed, with acts including Broadcast from the UK, Justice from France, Lali Puna from Germany and The Postal Service, Ratatat, and BOBBY from the US, mixing a variety of indie sounds with electronic music, largely produced on small independent labels. In Britain the combination of indie with dance-punk was dubbed new rave in publicity for the Klaxons and the term was picked up and applied by the NME to bands including Trash Fashion, New Young Pony Club, Hadouken!, Late of the Pier, Test Icicles and Shitdisco, forming a scene with a similar visual aesthetic to earlier rave music.
There are a number of popular Indietronica playlists on youtube
The genre is now widely popular with a large range of age groups however mostly towards the teenager to young adult due to the care-free, wild and spontaneous lyrics. Songs from this genre regularly appear in the UK chart
showing they can compete with pop music and other rock genres.
Lyrics to a popular Two Door Cinema Club song that are typical of the genre You would look a little betterDon't you knowIf you just wore less make-upBut it's hard to realiseWhen you're sky highFighting off the spaceships
And so you're drinking in your roomTo make it all goIt didn't end too soonYou've got the next oneYou're holding on too longYou've got to let goYour other love is goneAnd you know
It's too lateIt's too lateYou've got another one comingAnd it's going to be the same
I tried to find a quiet place that we could goTo help you make decisionsBut I didn't find it easy to tell them apartWith double vision
And so you're drinking in your roomTo make it all goIt didn't end too soonYou've got the next oneYou're holding on too longYou've got to let goYour other love is goneAnd you know
It's not the sameIt's not the sameIt's not the sameYou're going to tell me that I'm rightYou're going to come back downAnd find yourselfWhere you are again
You didn't knowYou didn't knowYou didn't knowSo don't pretend you saw it nowIt's not something you'd want to happen
Adam YoungAlt-JAnimal CollectiveArchitecture In HelsinkiAs IBag RaidersBig ScaryBear in HeavenBroken BellsCaribouChairliftCharli XCXChrome SparksCitizens!CorneliusCom TruiseCrystal CastlesCut CopyDeloreanDigitalismElectric PresidentEIMICElectric GuestEllie GouldingEMF (band)Empire of the SunFaded Paper FiguresThe FaintFeathersFoster the PeopleFreezepopFriendly FiresGrum
Gang Gang DanceGeographerGhostland ObservatoryThe Glitch MobGold PandaGrimesGrouploveHer Space HolidayHot ChipHuman ResourcesiamamiwhoamiIAMXI Am Robot and ProudI Heart SharksIcona PopIrisIs TropicalI Was A Cub ScoutJusticeLali PunaLCD SoundsystemLetting Up Despite Great FaultsLittle DragonThe LimousinesM.I.A.M83MetronomyMGMTMiami HorrorMiike SnowMkaioMontt MardiéMoby
Ms. John SodaThe Naked and FamousNeon IndianNiki & The DoveThe NotwistPassion PitPaulsonPatrick WolfPenguin PrisonPhantogramThe Postal ServicePurity RingRadioheadRatatatRebecca & FionaRöyksoppShiny Toy GunsShy ChildSTRFKRTeenagerThe FeddensThe KnifeThe ShoesThis Could Be YoursToro Y MoiTotally Enormous Extinct DinosaursTwo Door Cinema ClubUlrich SchnaussUnicorn KidUh Huh HerWashed OutThe WombatsThe xx
Wikipedia’s list of notable artists