GL on Music Theory Print

Glam metal

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics, fashion, and terminology#

Musically, glam metal combines a traditional heavy metal sound with elements of hard rock and punk rock, adding pop-influenced catchy hooks and guitar riffs. Like other heavy metal songs of the 1980s (most notably thrash metal songs), they often feature shred guitar solos. They also include extensive use of harmonies, particularly in the characteristic power balladsslow, emotional songs that gradually build to a strong finale. These were among the most commercially successful singles in the genre and opened it up to a wider audience that would otherwise not have been attracted to traditional heavy metal. Lyrical themes often deal with love and lust, with songs often directed at a particular woman. Aesthetically glam metal draws heavily on the glam rock or glitter rock of the 1970s, often with very long backcombed hair, use of hair spray, use of make-up, gaudy clothing and accessories (chiefly consisting of tight denim or leather jeans, spandex, and headbands). The visual aspects of glam metal appealed to music television producers, particularly MTV, whose establishment coincided with the rise of the genre. Glam metal performers became infamous for their debauched lifestyles of drugs, strippers and late-night parties, which were widely covered in the tabloid press. Sociologist Deena Weinstein points to the large number of terms used to describe more commercial forms of heavy metal, which she groups together as lite metal. These include, beside glam metal: melodic metal, false metal, poodle bands, nerf metal, pop metal or metal pop, the last of which was coined by critic Philip Bashe in 1983 to describe bands such as Van Halen, Bon Jovi, and Def Leppard. AllMusic employs the umbrella term “pop metal”, which refers a late-1980s variation of pop metal characterized by flashy clothing and heavy makeup influenced by glam rock (as embodied by Poison and Mötley Crüe). Use of the derogatory term “hair metal” started in the early 1990s, as grunge gained popularity at the expense of 1980s metal. In the “definitive metal family tree” of his documentary Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, anthropologist Sam Dunn differentiates pop metal, which includes bands like Def Leppard, Europe, and Whitesnake, from glam metal bands such as Mötley Crüe and Poison.

Glam punk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The first band to merge proto-punk music with a glam rock aesthetic was the New York Dolls, who formed in 1971. Glam punk has been seen as a backlash to the hippie folk music sensibilities of the 1960s. The band immediately influenced the formation of many bands in New York City’s club scene of the time. Their style was adopted by a number of New York bands, including the Stilettos, the Brats and Ruby and the Rednecks, and subsequently was the catalyst for the city’s early punk rock scene, which included Television, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, the Ramones, Blondie and Richard Hell and the Voidoids. The glam punk sound spread to other locations in the following years, where notable acts Hollywood Brats, Jet and Milk ‘N’ Cookies formed.

Glam rock

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Glam rock can be seen as a fashion as well as musical subgenre. Glam artists rejected the revolutionary rhetoric of the late 1960s rock scene, instead glorifying decadence, superficiality, and the simple structures of earlier pop music. In response to these characteristics, scholars such as I.Taylor and D. Wall characterised glam rock as “offensive, commercial, and cultural emasculation”. Artists drew on such musical influences as bubblegum pop, the brash guitar riffs of hard rock, stomping rhythms, and 1950s rock and roll, filtering them through the recording innovations of the late 1960s. Ultimately, it became very diverse, varying between the simple rock and roll revivalism of figures like Alvin Stardust to the complex art pop of Roxy Music. Visually, it was a mesh of various styles, ranging from 1930s Hollywood glamour, through 1950s pin-up sex appeal, pre-war cabaret theatrics, Victorian literary and symbolist styles, science fiction, to ancient and occult mysticism and mythology; manifesting itself in outrageous clothes, makeup, hairstyles, and platform-soled boots. Glam rock is most noted for its sexual and gender ambiguity and representations of androgyny, beside extensive use of theatrics. It was prefigured by the flamboyant English composer Noël Coward, especially his 1931 song “Mad Dogs and Englishmen”, with music writer Daryl Easlea stating, “Noël Coward’s influence on people like Bowie, Roxy Music and Cockney Rebel was absolutely immense. It suggested style, artifice and surface were equally as important as depth and substance. Time magazine noted Coward’s ‘sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise’. It reads like a glam manifesto.”

Glee (music)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Form#

The term “glee” has been as loosely used as madrigal, from whose rediscovery the impulse for glee composition likely grew (that, at least, was John Callcott’s opinion). Glees, although often in simple binary form, can also be extended pieces consisting of a number of short movements contrasted in key and tempo, including so-called word-painting. Their texts can be convivial, fraternal, idyllic, tender, philosophical or even (occasionally) dramatic. Glee composers often turned to near-contemporary poets for their texts on pastoral themes, as well as sources as diverse as Chaucer, Nicholas Breton, Shakespeare and Milton or translations of Classical poets or even Goethe. Some composers also used texts from more Romantic sources such as James Macpherson’s Ossianic epics. The form was very flexible and text-driven and could therefore be a great deal more complex in terms of variety of texture and freedom of expression than that of the post-Mendelssohnian, Romantic part song which largely superseded the glee and was intended to be sung by choirs. Several glee composers wrote pieces they described as madrigals, in imitation of the Renaissance style, the most famous being “Let me careless and unthoughtful lying” by Thomas Linley the Elder. Many glees in fact use madrigalian contrapuntal procedures as part of their tapestry of effects. Other composers successfully juxtaposed sections in the French Overture style and style galant with Affetuoso 3/4 movements and sections of robust Handelian fugal writing as well as short sections for solo or duetting voices. A very few glees have basso continuo or other instrumental accompaniment. A notable example of the simpler sort of glee is Glorious Apollo, by Samuel Webbe Sr., written in 1787 as a theme song for the newly founded London Glee Club, it is a vigorous piece for 3 voices (ATB). Webbe’s glee took root with the Harvard Glee Club, the oldest such group in America, which still sings this song. Webbe wrote the text as well as the music, and in it he faithfully traced the London Glee Club’s history; for the first couple of years, the meetings circulated among members’ homes. This is reflected in the second line, which notes that the club was “wand’ring to find a temple for his praise.” It finally found its “temple” when the club’s meetings moved to the Newcastle Coffee House. Webbe’s references to the gods of the Greek pantheon were part and parcel of the Georgian gentlemen’s singing clubs’ identification with the learning and leisure activities of the classical world. Webbe structured the poem so that the first two couplets of each verse were sung by solo voices, with all the members joining in at the refrain, “Thus then combining…”. :Glorious Apollo :Glorious Apollo from on high beheld us, :Wand’ring to find a temple for his praise. :Sent Polyhymnia hither to shield us, :While we ourselves such a structure might raise. :Thus then combining, hands and hearts joining, :Sing we in harmony Apollo’s praise. :Here ev’ry gen’rous sentiment awaking, :Music inspiring unity and joy. :Each social pleasure giving and partaking, :Glee and good humour our hours employ. :Thus then combining, hands and hearts joining, :Long may continue our unity and joy.

Glitch (music)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Precursors#

The origins of the glitch aesthetic can be traced to the early 20th century with Luigi Russolo’s Futurist manifesto L’arte dei rumori (The Art of Noises) published in 1913, which became the basis of noise music. He constructed mechanical noise generators, which he named intonarumori, and wrote multiple compositions to be played by them, including Risveglio di una città (Awakening of a City) and Convegno di automobili e aeroplani (Meeting of Automobiles and Airplanes). In 1914, a riot broke out at one of his performances in Milan, Italy. Christian Marclay began in 1979 to use mutilated vinyl records to create sound collages, while Yasunao Tone used damaged CDs in his Techno Eden performance of 1985. The 1992 album It Was a Dark and Stormy Night by Nicolas Collins included a composition featuring a string quartet playing alongside the stuttering sound of skipping CDs. Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima’s electronic soundtrack for the 1994 video game Streets of Rage 3 used automatically randomized sequences to generate “unexpected and odd” experimental sounds.