Tag Archives: Rock

Freddie Mercury and Queen break out

In the world of 1970s rock, Freddie Mercury’s voice had few equals. After joining Queen in 1970, his voice quickly became the hallmark of the band. The song Bohemian rhapsody, from the LP A night at the opera (named after a Marx Brothers film) was a coming out for Mercury, whose poetic and dramatic vocal style on that song became a focal point of Queen’s music. In 1976, the band released the LP A day at the races, named for another Marx Brothers film, and performed in London’s Hyde Park in front of more than 150,000 people. Their singles and LPs took the top spots on the hit parades of many countries, millions of records were sold, and the band’s management booked the largest halls and stadiums for their tours.

The album News of the world, released in 1977, featured anthems for the large venues where the band performed, and included the hits We will rock you and We are the champions. Mercury’s flamboyant personality and performances along with his cross-dressing managed to avoid media witch hunts and even enhanced Queen’s public image. Mercury dressed as a ballet dancer and stormtrooper for the 1984 music video I want to break free and convinced the rest of the band to dress in drag for the video as well.

Despite his commitment to the Queen, Mercury nurtured a solo career beyond the band. Before the release of Queen’s 1973 debut album, he recorded a cover version of I can hear music by the Beach Boys under the pseudonym Larry Lurex, and solo work over the course of his career included tracks for a Dave Clark musical and the 1988 album Barcelona, which featured a duet with the Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé.

Freddie Mercury’s 77th birthday was celebrated this week on September 5! Read on in the Lexicon of progressive rock: musicians, bands, instruments, terms (2013). Find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias (RME).

Watch the music video for Queen’s I want to break free below.

In case you missed it, here’s a related post on Bibliolore.

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Filed under Performers, Popular music

A day in the life

In 2019 Le Castor Astral launched A day in the life, a book series directed by Christophe Quillien. Each title evokes a key moment in the great rock saga; beyond the detailed narration of the facts, it traces the day’s consequences, sometimes unexpected, and its influence on rock in general.

The inaugural issue, De rock et de metal: 30 mai 1980, Trust dynamite–Le hard français by Pascal Paillardet (RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2019-17626), focuses on the evening in 1980 when the band Trust was recording “Antisocial” for its album Répression. This song became the anthem of the group and the spearhead of French hard rock. Through an account of this recording, the author illuminates the emergence of hard rock in France in the 1980s.

Below, the recording in question.

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Filed under New series, Popular music

BOSS

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Launched in 2014, BOSS: The biannual online-journal of Springsteen studies publishes scholarly peer-reviewed essays pertaining to Bruce Springsteen.

This open-access journal seeks to encourage consideration of Springsteen’s body of work primarily through the political, economic, and sociocultural factors that have influenced his music and shaped its reception.

BOSS welcomes broad interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches to Springsteen’s songwriting and performance. The journal aims to secure a place for Springsteen Studies in the contemporary academy.

Below, Born in the USA, the subject of the first article in the first issue.

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Filed under New periodicals, Popular music

Rock music studies

 

In 2014 Taylor & Francis launched Rock music studies, which publishes articles, book and audio reviews, and opinion pieces on rock music and its numerous subgenres three times a year.

To best focus this international journal, which evolved from Popular music and society, the editors limit the often all-inclusive definition of rock to exclude other genres such as doo-wop, country, jazz, soul, and hip hop, but include roll and roll, rockabilly, blues rock, country rock, jazz rock, folk rock, hard rock, psychedelic rock, prog rock, metal, punk, alternative, and other subgenres of rock.

The editors welcome articles on rock’s interaction with other styles and are receptive to all disciplinary, methodological, and theoretical approaches.

All research articles undergo a rigorous peer review process by at least two anonymous referees, based on an initial screening by the editors. The journal is also open to special issues focusing on an artist, a subgenre, or a topic.

Below, Bob Dylan in the 1960s, the subject of an article in the inaugural issue.

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Filed under New periodicals, Popular music

Stevie Ray Vaughan, roadhouse king

 

The roadhouse is an American institution—the little bar on the edge of town that comes alive when the sun comes down with back-to-basics roots music. Texas is the honorary home of roadhouse music, and Stevie Ray Vaughan was its uncrowned king.

Vaughan arrived in a blaze of guitar glory in the early 1980s, following on the trail of his Texas forebears from electric guitar pioneers like Eddie Durham and Charlie Christian to blues legends like T-Bone Walker, Freddie King, Albert Collins, and his own big brother Jimmie.

This according to Roadhouse blues: Stevie Ray Vaughan and Texas R&B by Hugh Gregory (San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2003).

Today would have been Vaughan’s 60th birthday! Below, live in 1982.

BONUS: One of his legendary Hendrix covers.

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Filed under Jazz and blues, Popular music

Punk & post-punk

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In 2012 Intellect launched Punk & post-punk (ISSN 2044-1983; EISSN 2044-3706), a journal for academics, artists, journalists, and the wider cultural industries.

Placing punk and its progeny at the heart of interdisciplinary investigation, it is the first forum of its kind to explore this rich and influential topic in both historical and critical theoretical terms. The journal is edited by Philip Kiszely and Alex Ogg.

More articles about punk rock are here.

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Filed under New periodicals, Popular music

Patti Smith and Rimbaud

Patti Smith’s direct assimilation of Arthur Rimbaud’s work into hers presents a case of cultural cross-fertilization in which the poetry of a foreign high-cultural figure enters into and influences a popular and countercultural discourse, illustrating how a nonacademic reading of a canonical text can help to produce a musical style that disseminates a message of social deviance.

Smith has foregrounded her debt to Rimbaud in several ways, explicitly referring to him as her major poetic influence and participating in a hermeneutic activity as she transformed his texts into her own. The poet has served as Smith’s most credible archetype of subversive behavior, and his work has provided the richest source for the development of her innovative aesthetic practices.

This according to “Rimbaud and Patti Smith: Style as social deviance” by Carrie Jaurès Noland (Critical inquiry XXI/3 [Spring 1995] pp. 581–610). Below, Smith performs Rock n roll nigger, one of the songs analyzed by Noland, in 2011; listen for Rimbaud’s name around 3:20.

More posts about punk rock are here.

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Filed under Literature, Popular music, Reception

Air guitar and gender

 

Like real rock guitar playing, air guitar—miming electric guitar playing without an instrument—is heavily informed by gendered practices in rock, where the electric guitar functions as a signifier of masculine power and implied sexual prowess, and performing on it involves symbolic aggression and dominance.

Women air guitarists appropriate and disrupt rock culture’s consensus, undermining and subverting its gendered performance. This gender bending emphasizes women’s critique of rock culture’s masculinist attitude while asserting female power through the nonthreatening manipulation of an imaginary phallic symbol.

This according to “The girl is a boy is a girl: Gender representations in the Gizzy Guitar 2005 Air Guitar Competition” by Hélène Laurin (Journal of popular music studies XXI/3 (September 2009) pp. 284–303. Above and below, the multi-award-winning Nanami “Seven Seas” Nagura.

Related article: Sexual attraction by genre

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Filed under Instruments, Popular music

In Extremo and Walther

Recent interchanges between medieval music and heavy metal open new perspectives on historically informed practice. A comparison of recordings of Walther von der Vogelweide’s Palästinalied by Thomas Binkley, Paul Hillier, and In Extremo illuminates how historic orientation and its inherent sense influence performance aesthetics.

This according to “Gothic und HIP: Sinn und Präsenz in populären und in historisch informierten Realisierungen des Palästinalieds” by Konstantin Voigt (Basler Jahrbuch für historische Musikpraxis XXXII [2008] pp. 221–234). Above, a portrait of the great Minnesinger; below, In Extremo’s historically informed rendition of Walther’s celebrated work about the Crusades.

Related article: Advanced musicology

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Filed under Curiosities, Middle Ages, Performance practice, Popular music, Reception