Bubblegum pop emerges.
Wikipedia has this to say about it:
The chief characteristics of the genre are that it is pop music contrived and marketed to appeal to pre-teens and teenagers, is produced in an assembly-line process, driven by producers, using faceless singers and has an upbeat "bubblegum" sound. The songs typically have singalong choruses, seemingly childlike themes and a contrived innocence, occasionally combined with an undercurrent of sexual double entendre. They also have a catchy melody, simple chords, simple harmonies, danceable beats, and repetitive riffs or "hooks".
Well, that sound familiar. Wikipedia goes on to say that the music of the 90s, such as Britney Spears and boy bands, developed from this same genre. I'm glad we're all in agreement.
Their main example is the Monkees, who, apparently, were formed for a TV show of the same name. It doesn't really get more corporate than that.
Folk Music and Bob Dylan
Folk Music saw a revival, with a crop of singer-songwriters writing "protest music," spearheaded by Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Minnesota and was really into early rock and roll in his youth, such as the music of Little Richard and Buddy Holly. He only turned to folk music later, in his college days, because for him, it seemed more tragic and deep and had the ability to express a wider range of human emotions. He started introducing himself as "Bob Dylan" when he was playing his college folk circuit (he was a fan of the poetry of Dylan Thomas). In 1961 he dropped out of college and moved to New York, where he started playing the Greenwich Village scene and made his first few records with Columbia. By 1963 he was already established as a singer-songwriter and associated with the anti-war and civil rights movements, along with his supporter and lover Joan Baez, who promoted him at her own concerts. His music had a great following amongst the fringe elements of the 60s.
Starting to feel a little constrained by the folk movement, he reinvented himself as a folk-rock pop star. In 1965 he released "Like a Rolling Stone." According to Wikipedia: At over six minutes in length, the song has been widely credited with altering attitudes about what a pop single could convey. Bruce Springsteen, in his speech during Dylan's inauguration into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame said that on first hearing the single, "that snare shot sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind."
Rolling Stone has it as the greatest rock song ever made, and it's easy to hear why. It sounds like it could have been written today. Hell, if it came out today, it would probably immediately chart and eclipse most of the drivel that enjoys airtime now.
He also started using electric instruments, which was a big controversy at the time and alienated a lot of fans (presumably, they thought he had betrayed them. How dare he experiment with something unfamiliar!).
He would leave a very extensive legacy. He is considered the voice and the guiding spirit of the counterculture movement. His songwriting has been compared in depth and quality to Keats, Eliot, and Tennyson and he is credited with bringing a level of seriousness and intellectual ambition to pop music. His musical style spanned everything from rock to gospel to R&B to folk to country -- basically every genre of pop music that had been invented at the time. Many artists credit him with laying down the foundation for "lyric, tune, seriousness, spirituality, and depth of rock music." Basically, he was the first really famous rock star to use music to actually say something profound.
Soul and Motown develop
I'm trying to avoid talking about the Beatles just yet, so we're going to move onto something else in the meantime.
Soul music is a combination of gospel music and rhythm and blues. There are a bajillion offshoots and I simply don't have the patience to go into all that. Instead, here is a video of James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul."
Sort of in response, Motown develops, which is actually a record label founded in Detroit owned by African Americans featuring mostly African American artists that sang soul music with a distinct pop flair.
San Francisco Sound and Acid Rock/Psychedelic Rock
Psychedelic rock is a genre that tries to recreate the experience of tripping out on acid in a musical form. As Wikipedia puts it: Psychedelic rock bridged the transition from early blues-based rock to progressive rock, art rock, experimental rock, hard rock and eventually heavy metal.
Elements include:
- electric guitars -- 12-strings being preferred for their 'jangle';
- elaborate studio effects, such as backwards taping, panning (sound placement in the stereo field), phasing, long delay loops, and extreme reverb;
- exotic instrumentation, with a particular fondness for the sitar and tabla
- a strong keyboard presence, especially Hammond, Farfisa, and Vox Organs, the Rhodes electric piano, Harpsichords, and the Mellotron (an early tape-driven 'sampler');
- a strong emphasis on extended instrumental solos; and/or
- modal melodies (a melody that is not really in any major or minor key) and surreal, esoterically-inspired, or whimsical lyrics;
- Rather than writing about love or poverty they would write about literature
Los Angeles also got into the the psychedelic scene. In 1965, the Doors formed with Jim Morrison, and they released the song "Light My Fire," which at 7 minutes long, broke the 3-minute pop radio song idiom.
In England, the advent of Pirate Radio helped psychedelic music reach a huge audience. Soon, everyone was getting into the scene. In 1966, the Jimi Hendrix experience was formed, fronted by Hendrix, who is considered one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
The Beach Boys got rid of their squeaky clean image to release the psychedelic-influenced Good Vibrations. The Who's Tommy and the Rolling Stones' "Paint it Black" and Their Satanic Majesties Request featured psychedelic sounds. Even the Bee Gees were psychedelic for a time, before reinventing themselves to disco. Then, there was the Beatles.
Now we have to talk about them.
In 1963 "I want to hold your hand" was first played in the US. The Beatles were already popular in England before making their extremely well received US debut in 1964 amidst a rising tide of Beatlemania. Once they became established, they started the British Invasion. Their albums Revolver and Rubber Soul had already established their dominance in trippy experimental ism (although, after all, it was the 60s. Most of rock and roll as it exists today hadn't been invented yet. Just about everything they wrote that was modern sounding was "experimental" at the time. And the acid was showing its effects, too). These two albums were greatly inspired by Bob Dylan's example, while proving to be just as catchy and radio-friendly as "I Can't Get No Satisfaction," which had just come out in 1965 and was a huge smash hit for their countrymen, the Rolling Stones.
The Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in 1967, in the aftermath of waning Beatlemania and a decision to return to the studio after a long time touring. The Beatles had made their career in studio albums but had been touring excessively and were starting to feel the strain of being so special. The idea was to record an album as a fictional band, so that they could be free and not feel the pressure of being "The Beatles." It is rated as one of the most influential records of all time. Rolling Stone has it at #1 position on its list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and after gushing over it for paragraphs (how influential it is, how it perfectly complemented the 1967 "Summer of Love" and spearheaded this feeling of love and peace all across the globe, how it represented the pinnacle of cutting edge studio work and collaborative harmonics, and on and on), it finally says, "Yet Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the Number One album of the RS 500 not just because of its firsts -- it is simply the best of everything the Beatles ever did as musicians, pioneers and pop stars, all in one place."
As Wikipedia puts it: it is a veritable encyclopaedia of psychedelia (among other elements), as well as an explosion of creativity that would set the standard for rock albums decades later. From the title track to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" to "Within You Without You" to "A Day in the Life", the album showcased a wildly colourful palette, with unpredictable changes in rhythm, texture, melody, and tone colour that few groups could equal.
Other "British Invasion" bands included the Rolling Stones and The Who. Here is "Paint it Black" by the Rolling Stones, featuring a very characteristically psychedelic-rock sounding opening riff:
The Who formed in 1964 and soon rose to fame in the UK, helped by the advent of pirate radio which became a major contender to BBC broadcasting. They had crossover success in the US, starting from Tommy (1969). They became known for energetic live performances and for trashing their instruments on stage, and later on became associated with the punk and hard rock movements. Here is Baba O'Riley from Who's Next, featuring a synthesizer intro:
Prog Rock
Another notable band from this genre is Pink Floyd, whose sound influenced the Beatles on the making of their Lonely Hearts album, as they shared studio space with them. Progressive rock formed out of the late 1960s and went on through the 70s partly as a response to the influence of the Beatles and is, according to Wikipedia, a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." The following characteristics are all lifted from Wikipedia:
Form: Progressive rock music either avoids common popular music song structures of verse-chorus-bridge, or blur the formal distinctions by extending sections or inserting musical interludes, often with exaggerated dynamics to heighten contrast between sections. Classical forms are often inserted or substituted, sometimes yielding entire suites, building on the traditional medleys of earlier rock bands. Progressive rock music also often has extended instrumental passages, marrying the classical solo tradition with the improvisational traditions of jazz and psychedelic rock. All of these tend to add length to progressive rock music, which may last longer than twenty minutes and are usually not "songs" per se, but musical works that have a lot more in common with more established musical concepts.
Timbre (instrumentation and tone color): Early progressive rock groups expanded the timbral palette of traditional rock instrumentation of guitar, organ, bass, and drums by adding instruments more typical of jazz or folk music, such as flute, saxophone, and violin, and more often than not used electronic keyboards, synthesizers, and electronic effects units. Some instruments – most notably the Moog synthesizer and the Mellotron – have become closely associated with the genre.
Rhythm: Drawing on their classical, jazz, folk and experimental influences, progressive rock artists are more likely to explore time signatures other than 4/4 and tempo changes. Progressive rock generally tends to be freer in its rhythmic approach than other forms of rock music. The approach taken varies across different works but may range from regular beats to irregular or complex time signatures.
Melody and Harmony: In progressive rock, the blues inflections of mainstream rock are often supplanted by jazz and classical influences. Melodies are more likely to be modal than based on the pentatonic scale, and are more likely to comprise longer, developing passages than short, catchy ones. Chords and chord progressions may be augmented with 6th, 7th, 9th, and compound intervals; and the I-IV-V is much less common. Allusions to, or even direct quotes from, well-known classical themes are common. Some bands (notably King Crimson) have used atonal or dissonant harmonies, and a few, such as Henry Cow, Shub-Niggurath, and 5UUs, have even worked with rudimentary serialism.
Texture and imagery: Ambient soundscapes and theatrical elements may be used to describe scenes, events or other aspects of the concept. For example, leitmotif is used to represent the various characters in Genesis' "Harold the Barrel" (from Nursery Cryme) and "Robbery, Assault and Battery" (from A Trick of the Tail), and more literally, the sounds of clocks and cash registers are used to represent time and money in Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon.
Technology: To aid timbral exploration, progressive rock bands were often early adopters of new electronic musical instruments and technologies. The analog synthesizer is the instrument best associated with progressive rock. This included the modular Moog used by ELP, Mini Moog by Yes, ARP Pro Soloist by Genesis, Oberheim by Styx, etc. The mellotron, particularly, was a signature sound of early progressive bands. Pink Floyd utilized an EMS Synthi A synthesizer equipped with a sequencer on their track "On the Run" from their 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon. In the late 1970s, Robert Fripp, of King Crimson, and Brian Eno developed an analog tape loops effect (Frippertronics). In the 1980s, Frank Zappa used the Synclavier for composing and recording, and King Crimson utilized MIDI-enabled guitars, a Chapman Stick, and electronic percussion.
Concept albums: Collections of songs unified by an elaborate, overarching theme or story are common to progressive rock. As songs by progressive rock acts tend to be quite long, such collections have frequently exceeded the maximum length of recorded media, resulting in packages that require multiple vinyl discs, cassettes, or compact discs in order to present a single album. Concepts have included the historical, fantastical, and metaphysical, and even, in the case of Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick, poking fun at concept albums.
Lyrical themes: Progressive rock typically has lyrical ambition similar to its musical ambition, tending to avoid typical rock/pop subjects such as love, dancing, etc., rather inclining towards the kinds of themes found in classical literature, fantasy, folklore, social commentary or all of these. Peter Gabriel (Genesis) often wrote surreal stories to base his lyrics around, sometimes including theatrical elements with several characters, while Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) combined social criticism with personal struggles with greed, madness, and death.
Presentation: Album art and packaging is often an important part of the artistic concept. This trend can be seen to have begun with The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and played a major part in the marketing of progressive rock. Some bands became as well known for the art direction of their albums as for their sound, with the "look" integrated into the band's overall musical identity. This led to fame for particular artists and design studios, most notably Roger Dean for his work with Yes, and Hipgnosis for their work with Pink Floyd and several other progressive rock groups.
Stage theatrics: Beginning in the early 1970s, some progressive rock bands began incorporating elaborate and sometimes flamboyant stage theatrics into their concerts. Genesis lead singer Peter Gabriel wore many different colourful and exotic costumes in one show and frequently acted out the lyrical narrative of the songs, Pink Floyd would utilize burning gongs and crashing airplanes and inflatables, Yes incorporated futuristic stage sets designed by Roger Dean, performing 'in-the-round', and one of ELP's many stage antics include Emerson's "flying piano" at the California Jam concert, in which a Steinway grand piano would be spun from a hoist.
In short, prog-rock incorporates just about every "modern" feature of modern rock music.
Earlier on in the 60s part of their career, Pink Floyd was associated with psychedelic rock. Piper at the Gates of Dawn was released in 1967 when Syd Barrett was still with the band, and is considered one of the most influential albums of all time. By 1973, when Pink Floyd released Dark Side of the Moon, the prog-rock sound is hard to deny:
Ah, Pink Floyd - so ahead of their time.
Country Music
Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton are popular.
Velvet Underground
In 1967 The Velvet Underground and Nico was released. The band itself had gained notoriety, although not commercial success, as the house band for Andy Warhol and his shenanigans. The album is considered to be extremely influential to the punk and alternative movements of the 70s and 80s. At the time, it was controversial because of its blatant themes of S&M and drug use.
The Velvet Underground - Venus in Furs
In 1969, Woodstock was held, featuring many of the great acts of the time, including the Who, Hendrix, Joan Baez, Grateful Dead, and Jefferson Airplane. It was a flagship moment for the hippie peace and love generation.
The Beatles split up in 1970, Hendrix died in 1970 under mysterious circumstances, and Morrison was found dead in his bathtub in 1971. Thus, we kick off the 1970s.
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