NE on Music Theory Print

Nederbeat

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

History#

In the 1960s, The Beatles and the Merseybeat sound began to dominate the Dutch charts. The popularity of such music led to interest among Dutch musicians in forming bands to play this type of rock music, replacing a previous genre Indorock performed by Indonesian immigrants in the Netherlands. The interest was further spurred on by the Beatles concerts in the Netherlands in 1964 that drew large crowds, followed by a performance by The Rolling Stones at the Kurhaus in Scheveningen disrupted by an excited audience. The Hague was the country’s beat capital, where bands such as “the Golden Earrings” (the predecessor of Golden Earring), InCrowd, Q65, Het, Sandy Coast and The Motions were formed, along with its neighbouring coastal town Scheveningen. The clubs on its boulevard, from where Veronica’s pirate ship was constantly visible, became the locus for Dutch talent. Other bands such as the Outsiders also emerged in Amsterdam. These bands generally performed in English, with the exception of a few such as Het who performed in Dutch. Their guitarist Robbie van Leeuwen would later form Shocking Blue. Other popular groups were the Outsiders, Q65, Golden Earring, Ro-d-ys, The Shoes, and Cuby & the Blizzards. Nederbeat had association with the psychedelia and counterculture of the 1960s in the Netherlands. The beat sound was popular for a few years before the sound started to change, and the musical style of the bands evolved. Soul and Rhythm and blues became more popular, groups that performed in such style include Rob Hoeke Rhythm & Blues Group. The Cats shifted into the palingsound they created, while Cuby & the Blizzards developed their own distinct style of blues. The bands were mostly popular only in the Netherlands, but a few bands found success internationally. In 1970, Tee-Set had a top 10 hit with “Ma Belle Amie” in many countries, while Shocking Blue did better with “Venus”, which became the first ever No. 1 single by a Dutch band on Billboard Hot 100. Later in 1973, Golden Earring also had a worldwide hit with “Radar Love”. However, despite the successes, the genre had faded in the 1970s as popular music moved on to other genres and tastes such as Disco.

Nederpop

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

Sixties Nederpop bands#

Golden Earring
The Motions
The Outsiders
Tee-Set
Cuby + Blizzards
Brainbox
The Cats
Sandy Coast
The Shoes
Peter Koelewijn
Boudewijn de Groot
Rob de Nijs

Seventies Nederpop bands#

Shocking Blue
Mouth & MacNeal
Focus
Earth and Fire
George Baker
Golden Earring
Ekseption
Luv'
De Bintangs
Supersister
Pussycat
Teach-In
Livin’ Blues
Kayak
Herman Brood
Gruppo Sportivo
Alquin
Normaal
BZN
Nits

Eighties Nederpop bands#

Aside from Doe Maar, the early eighties were good for, amongst others, Golden Earring, Time Bandits (band), Diesel (band), Vandenberg, the Frank Boeijen Groep, Het Goede Doel, the Amazing Stroopwafels, Toontje Lager, VOF de Kunst, Drukwerk and Noodweer. Female Nederpop bands of the time included the Dolly Dots and Mai Tai.

Negermusik

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

Nazi Germany#

At the time of the Weimar Republic during 1927, Ernst Krenek’s opera of Jonny spielt auf (Jonny Plays) contained jazz musical performances that caused protests among some right-wing ethnic-nationalist groups in Germany at the time. In 1930, the American musician Henry Cowell wrote in the Melos journal that jazz interpreted a mixture of African-American and Jewish elements, stating that: The fundamentals of jazz are the syncopation and rhythmic accents of the Negro. Their modernization is the work of New York Jews … So jazz is Negro music seen through the eyes of the Jews. Such views were readily picked up by the Nazis. Their criticisms have included “gratuitous use of syncopation” and “orgies of drums”. More statements from the Nazis included such things as “artistic licentiousness” and “corruption seed in the musical expression” with “indecent dance forms”. They went on to scrutinize all modern music of the 1930s as a “political weapon of the Jews”. On 4 May 1930, Wilhelm Frick, the Reich’s newly appointed Minister of the Interior and Education for Thuringia made a decree called “Against the Negro Culture – For Our German Heritage”. In 1932 the national government under Franz von Papen pandered to the Nazis by banning all public performances by black musicians. After Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933, the Reich’s Music Chamber was also created in that same year. This was then followed by a full legal ban on this music on October 12, 1935, across all German national radio. This ban was spearheaded by the German Reich’s radio conductor, Eugen Hadamovsky, who purportedly stated: “As of today, I decree a definitive ban on the negro jazz for the entire German Radio.” In 1938, the Nazis organized the (Degenerate music) public exhibition in Germany, mainly held in Düsseldorf. This exhibition included a poster displaying a cartoon caricature of an African-American male playing on a saxophone with the Star of David on his tuxedo lapel. The overall theme of the exhibition was defamation of contemporary American music as “Negro music” and as another Jewish ‘plot’ upon German culture.

Neo soul

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

Etymology#

As a term, neo soul was coined by Kedar Massenburg of Motown Records in the late 1990s as a marketing category following the commercial breakthroughs of artists such as D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, and Maxwell. The success of D’Angelo’s 1995 debut album Brown Sugar has been regarded by several writers and music critics as the inspiration behind the term’s origin. In a 2002 interview for Billboard, Massenburg said that genre classifications are often unpopular because they may be suggestive of a short-lived trend. However Massenburg felt there was a need to market artists of the genre for listeners to have an understanding of what they were listening to. Jason Anderson of CBC News compares the etymology of neo soul to that of “new wave” and comments: “neo-soul is still an effective tag to describe the mix of chic modernity and time-honoured tradition that distinguished the genre’s best examples. Neo-soul artists tried to look both backward and forward, acting in the belief that a continuum might exist.”

Neo-bop

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

Musical style#

Neo-bop contains elements of bebop, post-bop, hard bop, and modal jazz. As both “neo-bop” and “post-bop” refer to eclectic mixtures of styles from the bebop and post-bebop eras, the precise differences in musical style between the two are not clearly defined from an academic standpoint. In the United States, Wynton Marsalis and “The Young Lions” have been associated with both neo-bop and post-bop. Neo-bop was also embraced by established straight-ahead jazz musicians who either abstained from the avant-garde and fusion movements or subsequently returned to music based on more traditional styles. This return to more traditional styles earned both praise and criticism, with Miles Davis derisively calling it “warmed over turkey” and others deeming it too dependent on the past. The movement, however, received praise from Time magazine and others who welcomed the return of more accessible forms of jazz.

Neo-medieval music

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

16th–19th centuries#

Though there is some scholarly disagreement about the extent to which a revival and study of medieval music existed in the 16th and 17th centuries, studies from the late 18th and early 19th century show comprehensive efforts to come to terms with various forms of medieval music. German scholar Martin Gerbert wrote a study De cantu et musica sacra on medieval ecclesiastical music in 1774, followed shortly by the volume of histories General History of Music written by Charles Burney between 1776-1789 and the Essai sur la musique ancienne et moderne by composer Jean-Benjamin de La Borde in 1780. Activity increased in the 19th century with the beginning of the academic discipline of musicology, while in 1814 French musician and music historian Francois-Louis Perne “attempted a complete transcription of a polyphonic mass for the first time”. Edmond de Couseemaker would publish a monograph of medieval music in 1852, and Richard Wagner’s music would further increase interest in musical medievalism.

Neo-prog

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

Characteristics#

Neo-prog is characterised by deeply emotional content, often delivered via dramatic lyrics and a generous use of imagery and theatricality on-stage. The music is mostly the product of careful composition, relying less heavily on improvised jamming. The subgenre relies very much on clean, melodic and emotional electric guitar solos, combined with keyboards. The main musical influences on the neo-prog genre are bands from the first wave of progressive rock such as early Genesis, Camel, and to a lesser extent Van der Graaf Generator and Pink Floyd.

Neo-psychedelia

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

Characteristics#

Neo-psychedelic artists primarily borrow a variety of musical, visual and aesthetic elements from 1960s and 1970s psychedelic music. Artists such as the Soft Boys, Spacemen 3 and the Church merged post-punk and jangle pop with psychedelic rock, pop, acid and folk music. According to AllMusic: Some neo-psychedelic bands were explicitly focused on drug use and experiences, and like the acid house movement of the same era, evoked transitory, ephemeral, and trance-like experiences. Several bands have used neo-psychedelic elements, or perform neo-psychedelia, to accompany surreal or political lyrics. In the view of author Erik Morse, “the sounds of American neo-psychedelia emphasized the cryptic margins of avant-rock, incorporating evanescent textures over an immutable bassline, producing a ‘heavy’ metallic ambience, contra-distinct to the sing-song filigree of British psychedelia”.

Neoclassical metal

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

Definition#

Neoclassical metal takes its name from a broad conception of classical music. In this it is a concept distinct from how neoclassicism is understood within the classical music tradition. Neoclassical music usually refers to a movement in musical modernism which developed roughly a century after the end of the Classical period and peaked during the years between the two World Wars. On the other hand, neoclassical metal music does not restrict itself to a return to classical aesthetic ideals, such as equilibrium and formalism. Its influences include both the Romantic musical period and the Baroque period of the seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth centuries. The music of late Baroque composers such as Vivaldi, Handel and Bach was often highly ornate. Neoclassical metal musicians such as Yngwie Malmsteen are inspired by this aspect of Baroque music and also by later composers such as the violinist Niccolò Paganini in using runs and other decorative and showy techniques in their performances. Neoclassical metal music thus looks to classical music as broadly understood by the general public and not to the more specialist technical definition used within classical circles.

Neofolk

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

Characteristics#

Neofolk blends elements of traditional and contemporary folk music with post-industrial and avant-garde influences, distinguishing it from mainstream folk traditions. It is commonly defined by the use of acoustic instruments. Artists incorporate influences from genres such as dark wave and dark ambient. Vocals may range from melodic singing to spoken word, with arrangements emphasizing atmosphere and mood over conventional song structures. Most neofolk artists stem from Nordic countries, Germany and Italy. The style often incorporates lyrical themes drawn from paganism, nature, and European history and mythology.

Neomelodic music

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

Style#

It is a peculiar borderland of aesthetics concerning music and everything else in the society in which it is created. Most artists that may be considered neomelodics often have more musical differences between them than common denominators. Neomelodic music is a celebration for those involved and a pejorative term with political implications for those outside. The geographical area that is its homeland consists of every suburb, smalltown, and province between Romanina (Rome, Lazio, Italy) and Catania (Sicily, Italy) with its absolute epicenter in the working-class inner-city and peripherical areas of Naples (Campania, Italy). Neomelodic music draws on Naples’ long history of street entertainment including Commedia dell’arte and La sceneggiata napoletana. The first wave of what is considered as neomelodic was a renaissance of the sceneggiata form, including its typical themes of betrayal, class society, and crime, in the early 1970s. The main pioneers of the neomelodica were the singers Mario Merola and Nino D’Angelo with their numerous collaborations and duets, in films and in pop songs, as well as in musicals, in the 1970s and 1980s. The duet is typical for the neomelodic form as it continues and develops the dramatic form of the sceneggiata in which a troubled main character always must struggle against an antagonist to make his way forward. Apart from the duet being a common form, there are chord progressions that are commonly used in neomelodica. The first wave of neomelodica (ca 1970–1985) often mixed traditional Neapolitan forms of music, like the neoclassical Neapolitan music including world famous songs such as “‘O sole mio”, “Tu si na cosa grande” and “O surdato nnammurato”, that itself is a combination of general European aesthetic, occasionally with Spanish and Arabic influences. The second wave (late 1980s until present) however has a fixation on the melodic progressions typically starting the verses on the VI chord in the major scale and progressing over the 4ths, and the choruses starting on the II chord in the major scale and progressing over the same 4ths. The complete dominance of a specific chord progression serves many purposes: # any bar pianist or busking guitar player can play 50% of modern-day neomelodica without ever before having heard the song that a singer requests # the crowds at the concerts can attend (and sing along to) any concert without having had to listen to the artists’ songs before as they already know which note that follows # professional musicians in the genre become interchangeable so it matters less if someone is absent at the time of a performance # the songwriters can focus on putting as much sentiment as possible into the lyrics, and decoration, since the chords and melody are already there # the singers can perform long medleys covering their whole careers, without barely changing chord progression The theme of a neomelodic lyric is always direct. The message is clear and there is little room for allegory or irony. A typical theme is that of betrayal, taking the recipe from la sceneggiata in which women are the ones that destroy decent families. (e.g. “Nun voglio fà l’amante” by Nancy and Nico Desideri). Other themes include forbidden love (e.g. “Maestra e pianoforte” by Nino D’Angelo and “L’amica e mammà” by Luciano Caldore), class betrayal (e.g. “Faje ammore cu Secondigliano” by Ida Rendano), celebrating love and the desire to marry (e.g. “Per sempre” by Raffaello and “Un ragazzo da sposare” by Emiliana Cantone), and numerous other themes that however always stick to a perceived reality of one or more young persons living in Naples. It is to a great extent the absence of conceptualism that is the trademark of neomelodica, and this absence, in turn, becomes an ever-present presence. Perhaps a good example of this non-ironic irony is the song (and the music video) “Nun t’ho negà” by Mimmo Dany. The more the singers manage to make their listeners suffer with them as they get to hear their private phone conversations (e.g. “Dammi un’occasione” by Emiliana Cantone and Alessio or “Basta” by Emiliana Cantone and Leo Ferrucci) or get to read their text messages (e.g. “Sms” by Alessio), the more they have succeeded in creating the cultural loop of “napolitanità” between people that already are Neapolitans.

Neoperreo

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

Origins and characteristics#

Emerging in parallel with the rise of reggaeton as a mainstream genre globally, neoperreo is characterized by a darker production style that is less pop-oriented than that of the genre’s most popular artists. In addition, neoperreo has been noted for having a strong presence of queer and female artists, as well as lyrics that often relate to subverting or re-appropriating gender stereotypes, especially those relating to sexuality. The term was coined as a hashtag by Tomasa del Real and Ms Nina, pioneering figures of the subgenre. Neoperreo is also characterized by its eclectic character. In addition to the aforementioned influences, neoperreo frequently incorporates elements from electronic music. In particular, in the early stages of the movement, several artists utilized the sound of witch house.

Neotango

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

The music#

The term neotango has been used in the past as a synonym for tango nuevo, for example when Astor Piazzolla broke some rules of the musical tango pattern. Nowadays it mainly refers to electrotango, a fusion of tango and electronic music which emerged in Argentina in the early 2000s (Gotan Project, Tanghetto, Bajofondo, Electrocutango, Tango Jointz, Tango Fusion, Narcotango and Otros Aires) . Neotango is also used to classify milongas where a wide spectrum of music is played: not only electrotango and tango nuevo, but also classical music, blues, trip-hop, ballads, dubstep, deep house, klezmer, soundtracks, chillout, world music, etc.

Neotraditional country

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

History#

Neotraditional country rose to popularity in the mid-1980s, a few years after the so-called “outlaw movement”, a previous “back-to-its-roots” movement, had faded in popularity. Neotraditionalism was born as a reaction to the perceived blandness of the mainstream country music at the time, which had been influenced by the rise of the “urban cowboy” fad. New (or “neo-”) traditionalism looked to the elders of country music like Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, Kitty Wells and George Jones for inspiration, and was a precursor to the more general categorization known as new country. The creation of neotraditionalism was also done in contrast to the more pop-oriented acts of the 1970s and 1980s, such as Ronnie Milsap and Anne Murray, along with the flood of former pop acts (see B.J. Thomas, Billy Joe Royal, The Osmond Brothers, Bill Medley, Dan Seals and Exile) switching to “country” to revive their careers. In 1981, George Strait had made his musical debut with the album Strait Country. The album was based on an approach towards traditional country music and its subgenres of honky tonk, Western swing, and the Bakersfield sound. The album was considered a sharp contrast to the then current trends of country music, at the time relying on the “urban cowboy” country-pop scene. AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine observed: It is with Strait Country that George Strait is credited with starting the neotraditional movement. The promotion of traditional country sounds was in part a retrenchment to appeal to the base of country music fans who remained loyal to the genre. 1986 in particular was a seminal year, as Randy Travis and Dwight Yoakam released their critically-acclaimed debut albums, marking a sea-change from urban cowboy to neotraditional country. Artists such as Holly Dunn, Clint Black, Ricky Van Shelton, Lyle Lovett, and Highway 101 soon followed as neotraditionalists stormed the country charts in the late 1980s. Neotraditionalism, to a certain extent, fell out of favor in approximately 1991, when Billboard removed record sales from its country chart and a new brand of popular country music exploded into mainstream popularity, led in large part by Garth Brooks, Toby Keith, and Reba McEntire (who merged neotraditionalist styles, with stadium rock-influences). Despite this shift, of the acts that were still popular in the 1980s, more of the neotraditional artists survived the shift into the 1990s than did those who did pop country in the 1980s tradition; Travis, Keith, Strait, McEntire, Loveless and newcomer Alan Jackson stayed true to the neotraditional sound and continued to have mainstream success alongside their newer, more pop-oriented rivals. In 2000, Strait and Jackson, both of whom remain popular as of the early 2020s, recorded a song titled “Murder on Music Row” which spoke directly to the rift between neotraditionalists and pop-country musicians. The lyrics include scathing criticisms of the Nashville establishment such as “Someone killed tradition, and for that, someone should hang.” Strait revisited the topic in his 2016 song “Kicked Outta Country”, which noted that history was repeating itself at the time as artists like Strait were being marginalized just like artists such as Merle Haggard and George Jones had been in 1991. Jackson made similar remarks in his own song “Where Have You Gone”, released at the same time as Strait’s, remarking in an interview that he hoped that younger country musicians would embrace the traditional sound because as it stood, “country music is gone and it’s not coming back.”

Nepalese rock

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

History#

The history of rock music in Nepal dates back to the 1970s when there were a few acts influenced by Western bands such as The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, and later Led Zeppelin, The Who, the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Iron Maiden, Deep Purple and Bob Marley. Bands in Kathmandu consisted mostly of local people from Kathmandu (capital of Nepal and famous hippie destination during 1970s), who got close with the hippies around the world to the extent that guitars and records were bought from them. Prism, who formed in 1976, was one of the earlier bands to start playing English songs. The members of Prism are still active playing either in other bands or in hotels and restaurants, and they still reunite sometimes as “Prism” to play on some special occasions. Most of the bands did not record any of the originals during the 70s and 80s but recording culture gradually started to change with bands such as The Influence and Crossroads. These bands introduced pop-rock elements to the Nepali music scene. Both bands released a few albums and were very popular at the time. These records were monumental in encouraging bands to record their own original material. After these bands came other bands such as The Peace, The Crisis, The Move, Metal Cross and Zenith. They also went on to produce their own records. There was a change in the direction of the music that the newer bands were making, and the stage was set for the bands and artists to record and perform their original compositions. Newaz is considered to be the first hard-rock band and released their debut album in 1991. This was shortly followed by Cobweb releasing their debut album called Anjaan in 1993. They are still active and releasing albums, although they are mostly confined to pub concerts. A few years later in 1996, Milestone, a band from Pokhara, released their debut album - Milestone. The album contained eight tracks, six of which were rock ballads but the other two Adhuro Prem and Mayalu were on the heavier side with a lot of guitar distortions, sweeping solos and screaming vocals. Music video for Adhuro Prem was also aired on limited Nepali television channels at the time. That type of music was unheard in the mainstream music industry and hence the track nor the album was fortunate enough to make a break in the industry. In the late 1990s, a few songs from the band Drishty (formed by Iman B. Shah while he was in the US) hit the FM airwaves on a few rock shows. While in the US, Drishty recorded two albums in the bedroom studio set up by Iman B. Shah, but none of the albums were formally released. Mukti and Revival, which consisted one of the most senior rock and blues musicians, also released Kalanki Ko Jam in 2000. In the same period, Robin n Looza: also made it big in the rock scene. There were, of course, already many other regulars as well as “one gig” bands that were doing metal covers live. During the early and mid 1990s, a few Iron Maiden songs and Diamond Head’s “Am I Evil?” were concert staples. Almost every hard rock show would have those two songs played by at least one band. Many such bands have never been documented. Ugra Karma’s release of the demo Himalayan Metal of Death in 2000 can be cited as the first Death Metal release by a Nepali band. Ugra Karma went on to release a full-length album named Blood Metal Initiation in 2001. This marks the beginning of Extreme Metal music in Nepal and Ugra Karma is regarded as the pioneering initiators of the underground Metal subculture in South Asia. The emergence of BMI Studios (otherwise known as Sacred Soundz) was an important event in the history of Metal in Nepal. The owner/engineer Iman B. Shah (Guitarist – Drishty and formerly of Vegetarian Vampires) was a ‘metalhead’ himself and was familiar with capturing the essence of metal - heavy riffs, thundering drums, thumping bass and deafening vocals – in the recording studio. Out of the few albums/songs that were ever recorded by local bands at that time, most of them like Ugrakarma’s “Himalayan Metal of Death”, “Blood Metal Initiation” and Albatross’ “Hi : Fly” were done at BMI/Sacred Soundz. The existence of a ‘metal’ recording studio opened up a lot of avenues for future bands trying to cut a record or a demo. Following the release of Ugra Karma’s full-length album ‘Blood Metal Initiation’ in 2001, there were a horde of bands in the valley playing quite a range of metal music. An indie rock scene had also emerged, with punk bands like Rai Ko Ris (www.raikoris.com), with singer and bass player Sareena Rai, leading the way to a nascent DIY movement. Several band contests, where an original was mandatory to compete, also fueled the new bands to seek the creativity within them and come up with something imperative. While such contests more than often yielded nine pop bands for every metal band, it still was a very significant step forward. More gigs were being organized, and more bands emerged. But the difference between these gigs and the gigs five years ago was monumental – these new bands were playing their own songs. One of those bands was Refused 13 from Nakhipot, Lalitpur. The band had played their first gig opening for Dead Soul (on Metallica Anthology Concert, 2001). The band started creating a formidable reputation in the valley as a very “tight” metal band with an in-your-face attitude, conceived by many as the band to pick metal where Dead Soul had left and then elevate the scene into another level. During the band’s active years, the band organized another memorable gig “Keep Suffering” at Nakhipot. Anuraag Pokhrel, former vocalist of Albatross on the band says, “Refused 13 was definitely a force - the band and the persona of the band. I still remember that when they would walk into a concert, I would try to look at them without getting caught, because they were Refused13 and they looked like hardcore badasses that would kill you if you looked at them wrong”. Formed in late 2001, Nastik became the new leader among the metal bands, solely because of the use of growling vocals (aided by the fact that even though Ugrakarma is the first death metal band, they really never performed live). Nastik released a self-titled demo album in 2002, which featured “Maukil” – a fan favorite song in concerts. Nastik then released Judge Death – an all-out death metal album in 2003. However, as in many other cases, the album was never released officially but fans had their own ways to get their hands on the album. Third World Chaos’s four song EP Inferno was released in 2003 which is significant in the terms that it introduced hardcore influenced metal into Kathmandu’s scene. During the active days, TWC performed regularly in concerts with Nastik and X-mantra and helped the scene to become stronger. The release of X-mantra’s debut album Crying for Peace in 2003 hit the underground metal scene like a tsunami and created an astonishing aftermath. Their “No Cover Songs in Gigs” code created an astounding impact among other active bands in the scene. Several bands started performing originals who gradually realized that performing decent originals was more important than doing any magnificent cover songs. “Shalik” and “Chidiya Ghar” became new anthems in the metal concerts. In simple words, X-mantra did it. What Cobweb stood for the mainstream rock scene in Nepal, X-mantra proudly stood for the metal and underground scene in Nepal. Anuraag Pokhrel (ex-Albatross): “Even though the album “Crying for Peace” is 50% crap and the band eventually lost it, the other half of the album that does work is too well-done and too innovative to ignore. I think “Crying for Peace” paved the way for a more noise-receptive audience than there would have been otherwise.” Until their philosophical demise and in an attempt to garner commercial limelight by changing the direction, X-mantra’s first two albums (the second one being Kurshi, 2004) set a standard in the Nepali Metal history – proving that it was possible to fuse aggression in the almost poetic styled Nepali lyrics with riff based groovy metal. The same year saw the recording of a song titled “Itihaas” by Maya. With a melodic death/black metal style riffing and strong lyrics, Maya had an admirable influence on the next generation of black metal bands like Cruentus and Antim Grahan. The same year, members of Nastik and Albatross also joined forces as Abattoir and recorded a self-titled album before disbanding. At the end of 2004, bands like Ugra Karma, Nastik, TWC, Albatross, Refused 13 and X-mantra were either inactive, had disbanded or had moved away from the underground scene. By 2005, a new wave of bands such as Cruentus, Antim Grahan, Muga:, Brutal, Holocaust, and Breeding Pestilence started to bring new and innovative stuff into the scene. And later, bands like Epitaph, Morgoth and Vhumi forged new styles into the scene. Cruentus started as a metal cover band playing generally Sepultura on concerts. Their choice of music gradually shifted towards black metal and eventually Cruentus started covering Immortal, Amon Amarth, Graveworm and so on. The band started to perform originals and started to gain a huge sense of respect in the underground community as one of the most tightest live bands in Ktm. They recorded their EP Massacre of the Holy Ones in 2004 and later in 2005, recorded a full-length album, Asantusta Aatma – another milestone in the history of Nepali metal. Ashantusta Aatma featured rawness and aggression of black metal with a touch of death metal and the title song became a new anthem in the metal concerts. At the end of 2005 The Lakhey (First Newa Metal Band) recorded their first Newa Metal song Dhampa Tacha. Individually, Antim Grahan’s band members were just a bunch of average musicians, however as a band, their live performance was tight. The release of EP Forever Winter in the early 2005 was a bold testimony of their brand of symphonic black metal. Without wasting much time just after three months, Antim Grahan released their full-length album Tales of the Darkened Woods. Recorded and mixed in the Sacred Soundz, the album was able to capture the atmosphere and aggression of black metal. These two albums were very popular because of their melodic lines. Holocaust was a pure death metal outfit while Breeding Pestilence introduced somewhat technical death metal to the scene. At the same time, Blood Blisters were creating a strong following within the Lalitpur area. Blood Blisters started out as a cover band playing Iron Maiden exclusively. The band also participated in several band competitions - increasing their popularity - and inspiring some new bands in Patan like Morceous, Metalbox and Bequeath. 2006 saw the formation of progressive rock band Atomic Bush. Formed by the members of Breeding Pestilence, Ozzobozo and Elysium – Atomic Bush propelled the scene into a new and interesting frontier of progressive, virtuoso and eclectic rock. They had recorded an album called P Jam. The year 2007 was a great year for local underground as well with the releases of Barbaric Regulation (Epitaph) and The Last Verse of Madness (Morgoth/Lost Oblivion). A thrash/death band called 72hrs, formed by members of Ugra Karma and Refused 13 also released an EP, “Kunike”. When it comes to rock and heavy metal bands in Pokhara, it goes far back to the early 1990s when there were bands like Vagabond and Anamnesis. These bands mostly covered Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, UFO, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, and Metallica to name few. These two bands are believed to have set the heavy metal scene in Pokhara. Vagabond also released an album with Music Nepal. Vivax and Milestone were also notable names from the Pokhara scene. Bands such as Grease and Numskull who are credited for starting grunge/punk movement. Anorak started the melodic punk in the scene.

Nerd music

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

Origins#

The earliest example was filk music, from the 1950s onwards, played by fans at science fiction conventions. Towards the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, other styles of music developed. Factors that made this possible were the increasing affordability of equipment, the growth of the internet and the increase in the nerd-geek demographic.

Nerd folk#

Nerd-folk (also nerd folk, geek-folk, or dork-folk) is a musical genre derived from filking that features humorous original songs involving geeky topics performed in a folk style. Laser Malena-Webber and Aubrey Turner of The Doubleclicks credit Marian Call and others with creating the genre. The genre is related to filking and other nerd music genres such as nerdcore hip-hop and geek rock (alternative rock).

Nerdcore

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

Sound#

Being more defined by lyrics, nerdcore has no unifying musical sound, and the sound of nerdcore varies wildly from artist to artist. One common theme, especially in the early days of the genre, is uncleared sampling. MC Frontalot addressed this directly in his 1999 song “Good Old Clyde”, a thank you of sorts to Clyde Stubblefield for the “funky drummer” break – which was sampled to provide the song’s beat. Sources for samples in nerdcore range from Vanilla Ice to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (“Rondo Alla Turca”, in MC Plus+’s “Computer Science for Life”). YTCracker’s Nerdrap Entertainment System is an entire album made up primarily of samples from 8-bit Nintendo games. Another notable artist, Random, created an album dedicated to the Mega Man video games in 2007 titled MegaRan. Though some artists have moved away from this—Frontalot, for example, completely remixed several songs to remove uncleared samples before releasing them commercially on his 2005 album Nerdcore Rising—it is still quite common, as most nerdcore tracks are released non-commercially and thus attract little to no attention from the RIAA. Several DJs have provided beats and done remixes for multiple nerdcore artists, most notably Baddd Spellah, who currently mixes the majority of Frontalot’s tracks. Spellah also won a remix competition in 2004.

Neue Deutsche Härte

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

Characteristics#

describes a crossover style that is influenced by Neue Deutsche Welle, alternative metal and groove metal combining it with elements from electro-industrial and techno. The lyrics are generally in German. NDH uses the basic setup of instruments for metal: electric guitar, bass guitar, drums and vocals, along with keyboard, synthesizers, samples and sometimes additional percussion. Emphasis is on a demonstration of predominance, by over-pronouncing certain syllables and sounds (such as the uvular or alveolar trill). The vocals are dominantly presenting in deep, male and clean voice. Some bands use screaming and death growls, which is also common, being heard in certain songs by Oomph!, Rammstein, Joachim Witt, Megaherz and Eisbrecher. NDH imagery is often strongly masculine and militaristic. Guitars are tuned low, usually to drop D or drop C, and are generally heavily distorted. The NDH style has crossed borders and its popularity has grown in recent years to such an extent that there are already bands outside Germany, such as the Spanish band Bloody Kitchen, who do not use German in their songs as usual and their lyrics are also entirely in Spanish.

Neue Deutsche Todeskunst

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

History#

In the late 1980s, a number of German musicians combined music in neo-classical, gothic rock, and darkwave styles with German philosophical texts and a highly theatrical stage show. The music was based on post-punk, cold wave, and gothic rock of bands such as Joy Division, The Cure, and Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the synthesizer-based new wave sound of bands like Depeche Mode. The words often paid deep homage to German philosophers like Andreas Gryphius, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche and Gottfried Benn, as well as international poets such as Georg Trakl, As part of this movement, a number of bands use classical Latin for their lyrics and album names. The greatest Neue Deutsche Todeskunst hits include “Gottes Tod” by Das Ich (1990), “Verflucht” by Relatives Menschsein (1991), “Der Ketzer” by Lacrimosa (1991), “Das Ende” by Goethes Erben (1992) and “Regentanz” by Endraum (1992). Many NDT artists gravitated to the Danse Macabre record label.

Neue Deutsche Welle

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

History#

The history of Neue Deutsche Welle consists of two major parts. From its beginnings to 1981, the genre was mostly an underground movement with roots in British punk and new wave music. It quickly developed into an original and distinct style, influenced in no small part by the sound and rhythm of the German language, which many of the bands had adopted early on. Whilst some of the lyrics of artists like Nena and Ideal epitomized the zeitgeist of urban West Germany during the Cold War, others used the language in a surreal way, merely playing with its sound or graphic quality rather than using it to express meaning. This includes bands and artists such as Spliff, Joachim Witt, and Trio. The main centers of the NDW movement during these years were West Berlin, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Hanover, Hagen, Zurich, and Bern, as well as, to a lesser extent, the Frankfurt Rhein-Main Region, Limburg an der Lahn, and Vienna. From about 1980 on, the music industry began noticing Neue Deutsche Welle. However, because of the idiosyncratic nature of the music, focus shifted to creating new bands more compatible with the mainstream rather than promoting existing ones. Many one-hit wonders and short-lived groups appeared and were forgotten again in rapid succession. The overly broad application of the NDW label to these bands, as well as to almost any German musicians not using English lyrics, even if their music was apparently not influenced at all by the original NDW sound, quickly led to the decay of the entire genre when many of the original musicians turned their backs in frustration. A revival of interest in the style in the Anglophone world occurred in 2003, with the release of DJ Hell’s compilation New Deutsch. NDW has come to be acknowledged as a forerunner to later developments in dance-punk, electronic body music, and electroclash.

Neue Musik

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

Compositional means and styles#

The most important step in the reorientation of musical language was taken in the field of harmony, namely the gradual abandonment of tonality – towards free atonality and finally towards twelve-tone technique. Towards the end of the 19th century, the tendency to use increasingly complex chord formations led to harmonic areas that could no longer be clearly explained by the underlying major-minor tonality – a process that had already begun with Wagner and Liszt. From this, Arnold Schönberg and his students Alban Berg and Anton Webern drew the most systematic consequence, which culminated in the formulation (1924) of the method of “composition with twelve tones related only to one another” (dodecaphony). These atonal rules of composition provide composers with a toolkit that helps to avoid the principles of tonality. The designation as “Second Viennese School” in analogy to the “First Viennese School” (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) already betrays the special position that this group of composers has as a mediating authority. The principle of using all twelve tones of the tempered scale equally, without favouring individual tones, seems to have occupied various composers in the first two decades of the 20th century, who simultaneously, but independently of Schönberg, advanced to similarly bold results. Among these experimenters, in whose works twelve-tone and serial approaches can be discerned, is first of all Josef Matthias Hauer, who publicly argued with Schönberg about the “copyright” to twelve-tone music. Also to be mentioned is Alexander Scriabin, whose atonal sound-centre technique, based on quartal layering, subsequently paved the way for remarkable experiments by a whole generation of young Russian composers. The significance of this generation of composers for New Music, which emerged in the climate of the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, could only penetrate into consciousness in the second half of the century, as they were already systematically eliminated by the Stalinist dictatorship in the late 1920s. Here, Nikolai Roslavets, Arthur Lourié, Alexander Mossolov and Ivan Wyschnegradsky should be mentioned as representatives. A major shortcoming of the abandonment of major-minor tonality, however, was the extensive loss of the form-forming forces of this harmonic system. Composers countered this deficiency in very different ways. In order to avoid the classical-romantic musical forms, they now chose for the new music partly free (rhapsody, fantasy), or neutral (concert, orchestral piece) designations, or self-chosen, sometimes extremely short, aphoristic forms (Webern, Schönberg). Others adhered to traditional forms, even though their works themselves took this concept ad absurdum, or filled the traditional ideas of form with new content (Scriabin’s single-movement piano sonatas, Schoenberg’s sonata forms with the abandonment of the tonality that founded them in the first place). Even the fundamental idea of a continuous, purposeful processing of musical thoughts within a work loses its primacy, parallel to the loss of the 19th century’s belief in progress. New possibilities of shaping form, beyond parameters of music, which had previously been treated rather stepmotherly, such as timbre, rhythm, dynamics, systematic resp. Free montage techniques in Igor Stravinsky or Charles Ives, the rejection of the time directionality of music, as well as an increasing individualism claim their place. A musical source whose potential was also used for experimentation is folklore. While previous generations of composers had repeatedly chosen exotic subjects in order to legitimise structures that deviated from the prevailing rules of composition, it was in the work of Claude Debussy that a stylistic and structural adaptation of Javanese gamelan music, which he had become acquainted with in 1889 at the Paris 1889 World’s Fair, can be observed for the first time. In this context, the work of Béla Bartók, who had already explored most of the fundamental characteristics of his new style by means of a systematic study of Balkan folklore in 1908, is to be regarded as exemplary. In the course of this development, Bartók arrived at the treatment of the “piano as a percussion instrument” with his Allegro barbaro (1911), which subsequently had a decisive influence on composers’ treatment of this instrument. The rhythmic complexities peculiar to Slavic folklore were also appropriated by Igor Stravinsky in his early ballet compositions written for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Significantly, Stravinsky uses a given “barbaric-pagan” stage plot for his most revolutionary experiment in this respect (The Rite of Spring 1913). It was also Stravinsky who, in the further course of the 1910s, developed his compositional style in a direction that became exemplary for Neoclassicism. In France, various young composers appeared on the scene who devoted themselves to a similar emphatically anti-romantic aesthetic. The Groupe des Six was formed around Erik Satie, whose leading theoretician was Jean Cocteau. In Germany, Paul Hindemith was the most prominent representative of this movement. The proposal to use the canon of musical forms, such as the Baroque, to renew the musical language had already been put forward by Ferruccio Busoni in his Draft of a New Aesthetic of Musical Art. In the spring of 1920, Busoni formulated this idea again in an essay entitled Young Classicism. Furthermore, the radical experiments devoted to the possibilities of microtonal music are exceptional. These include Alois Hába, who, encouraged by Busoni, found his preconditions in Bohemian-Moravian musicianship, and on the other hand Ivan Wyschnegradsky, whose microtonality is to be understood as a consistent further development of the sound-centre technique of Alexander Scriabin. In the wake of the Italian Futurism around Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Francesco Balilla Pratella, which was based in the visual arts, Luigi Russolo in his manifesto The Art of Noises (1913, 1916) designed a style called Bruitism, which made use of newly constructed sound generators, the so-called intonarumori. The spectrum of musical expression is extended by another interesting experiment that also enters the realm of the musical application of sounds, namely the tone cluster by Henry Cowell. Some of the early piano pieces by Leo Ornstein and George Antheil also tend towards quite comparable tone clusters. With Edgar Varèse and Charles Ives, two composers should be mentioned whose works, which are exceptional in every respect, cannot be attributed to any larger movement and whose significance was only fully recognised in the second half of the century. The increasing industrialisation, which slowly began to take hold of all areas of life, is reflected in an enthusiasm for technology and (compositional) machine aesthetics, which was initially carried by the Futurist movement. Thus, the various technical innovations, such as the invention of the vacuum tube, the development of radio technology, the sound film and tape technology, moved into the musical field of vision. These innovations also favoured the development of new electric playing instruments, which is also significant with regard to the original compositions created for them. Lew Termen’s Theremin, Friedrich Trautwein’s trautonium and the Ondes Martenot of the Frenchman Maurice Martenot should be highlighted here. The partly enthusiastic hope for progress that was attached to the musically useful application of these early experiments was, however, only partially fulfilled. Nevertheless, the new instruments and technical developments possessed a musically inspiring potential that, in the case of some composers, was reflected in extraordinarily visionary conceptions that could only actually be technically realised decades later. The first compositional explorations of the musical possibilities of pianola also belong in this context. The medial dissemination of music by means of records and radio also made possible the enormously accelerated exchange or reception of musical developments that had been almost unknown until then, as can be seen from the rapid popularisation and reception of jazz. In general, it can be said that the period from around 1920 onwards was one of general “departure for new shores” – with many very different approaches. Essentially, this pluralism of styles has been preserved until today or, after a short period of mutual polemics between Serialism and adherents of traditional compositional styles (from about the mid-1950s onwards), has ceased again.

Neues Geistliches Lied

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

History#

The idea to reach young people by new songs for church services began in the 1950s. The first song in the genre was in 1955 Seigneur, mon ami by Père Duval who performed his religious chansons at the Protestant church assembly Kirchentag in 1962. Christians looked for an expression for reformation of thoughts and liturgy in the churches. The Protestant Evangelische Akademie Tutzing organised competitions, initiated by the minister for students (Studentenpfarrer) in Munich, Günther Hegele. The first competition in 1962 received 996 entries, the first prize went to “Danke” with text and music by Martin Gotthard Schneider. “Stern über Bethlehem” was written by Alfred Hans Zoller for the third competition in 1964, and became a common song of the star singers. Musicals by Andrew Lloyd Webber, in 1968 Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and in 1970 Jesus Christ Superstar, nourished tendencies to write more new music for young people. In 1972, Peter Janssens introduced the term Sacropop to Germany, for a fusion of sacred texts and musical styles derived from pop and rock. A 2001 study, presented at the Überdiözesane Fachtagung Neues Geistliches Lied reported more than 1895 choirs and bands active in the field of NGL. The songs became an established medium in services. Christoph Kießig of a Berlin band noted: “Das NGL ist eine der wenigen Stellen, an denen Jugendliche und Erwachsene nicht nur konsumieren.” (The NGL is one of the few fields where adults and young people don’t only consume.) wrote in 2003 that only songs that congregations like to sing in services are truly NGL (“Denn nur was sich bewährt, bleibt in den Gemeinden lebenden und wird als Neues Geistliches Lied praktiziert.”). New elements compared to traditional hymns are rhythms with syncopes and stresses on the offbeat, contemporary lyrics, and melodies that can be easily learned.

New beat

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

History#

New beat originated in Belgium in 1987, and was popular in several music clubs across Western Europe. Sometimes described as “new wave disco beat” the genre has been characterized as a blend of new wave, hi-NRG, ), and acid house. In addition to A Split-Second, new beat was also heavily influenced by other EBM acts such as Front 242, Signal Aout 42 and the Neon Judgement, as well as new wave acts such as Fad Gadget, Gary Numan, New Order, Boytronic New beat artists and bands include Lords of Acid and Technotronic, while Belgian hardcore techno bands that emerged from the hard beat and skizzo subgenres include T99, Praga Khan, Cubic 22, and the Immortals.

New Complexity

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

Origins#

Though often atonal, highly abstract, and dissonant in sound, New Complexity music is most readily characterized by the use of techniques which require complex musical notation. This includes extended techniques, complex and often unstable textures, microtonality, highly disjunct melodic contour, complex layered rhythms, abrupt changes in texture, and so on. It is also characterized, in contrast to the music of the immediate post–World War II serialists, by the frequent reliance of its composers on poetic conceptions, very often implied in the titles of individual works and work-cycles. The origin of the name New Complexity is uncertain; amongst the candidates suggested for having coined it are the composer Nigel Osborne, the Belgian musicologist Harry Halbreich, and the British-Australian musicologist Richard Toop, who gave currency to the concept of a movement with his article “Four Facets of the New Complexity”; Toop’s article emphasizes the individuality of four composers (Richard Barrett, Chris Dench, James Dillon, and Michael Finnissy), both in terms of their working methods and the sound of their compositions, and demonstrates that they did not constitute a unified “school of thought”. In the UK, particularly at the instigation of ensembles Suoraan and later Ensemble Exposé, works by “New Complexity” composers were for some time frequently programmed together with then unfashionable non-UK composers including Xenakis and Feldman, but also such diverse figures as Clarence Barlow, Hans-Joachim Hespos, and Heinz Holliger. Although the British influence, via the teaching efforts of Brian Ferneyhough and Michael Finnissy, was decisive in the origins of this movement, initial support came not from British institutions but rather from performers and promoters of new music in continental Europe, particularly at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse where Ferneyhough coordinated the composition courses from 1984 to 1992. Ferneyhough’s Etudes Transcendantales, a song cycle for soprano and chamber ensemble, demonstrates many traits found in New Complexity music. In addition to being generally difficult to learn and perform, the pitch vocabulary makes heavy use of microtones—in this case, equal-tempered quarter tones. It also contains many tuplets of unusual ratios which are nested in multiple layers. Rapid changes, sometimes from note to note, happen in dynamics, articulation, and playing technique, including techniques such as multiphonics on the oboe, glottal stops for the voice, and key-clicking for the flute. According to Richard Toop, the rhythm for the oboe part in the first song is almost totally determined by a strict system with five stages of complexity, each governed by its own cycle of numbers.

New flamenco

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

Origins#

Spain in the 1970s had changed in politics and society after the democratic transition. Traditional flamenco artists, being displaced in Spain in the 1950s and 1960s by rock-and-roll and influenced by the variety of musical styles that came from the rest of Europe and America, created the so-called “flamenco fusion”. José Antonio Pulpón was the decisive instigator of this fusion. He urged the cantaor Agujetas to collaborate with the Andalusian rock group Pata Negra, and fostered the artistic union between Paco de Lucía and Camarón de la Isla, who gave flamenco a creative boost, representing the definitive break with Mairena’s conservatism . Camarón was a popular cantaor due to his personality and his art, and had a wide audience of followers. Paco de Lucía was the one brought to flamenco music the new cultural influences of jazz, Brazilian and Arabic music. He also introduced new instruments, such as the transverse flute and the Peruvian cajon. Other outstanding artists were Juan Peña El Lebrijano, who fused flamenco with Andalusian music, and Enrique Morente, who has drawn from with rock influences.

New jack swing

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

Etymology#

The term “new jack swing” was coined in an October 18, 1987, Village Voice profile of Teddy Riley by Barry Michael Cooper. “New Jack” was a slang term (meaning “Johnny-come-lately”) used in a song by Grandmaster Caz of the Cold Crush Brothers, and “swing” was intended by Cooper to draw an “analogy between the music played at the speak easies of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s time to the crack-houses of Teddy Riley’s time”. The term “new jack swing” describes the sound produced and engineered by R&B/hip hop artist and producer Teddy Riley. Riley is an American R&B and hip hop singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer, who led the band Guy in the late 1980s and Blackstreet in the 1990s. Riley said, “I define the term new jack swing as a new kid on the block who’s swinging it.” The defining feature of Riley’s music was the introduction of swingbeats, “a rhythmic pattern using offbeat accented 16th note triplets”. In an interview with Revolt TV in 2017, Andre Harrell called Riley the inventor of the sound, hailing him “the king of New Jack Swing, because he invented it”.

New Jersey sound

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

History#

The New Jersey sound originated in the 1980s. Places like Club Zanzibar in Newark, New Jersey, where DJ Tony Humphries began his residency in 1982, helped “spawn the sometimes raw but always soulful, gospel-infused subgenre” of deep house music known as the Jersey sound. Besides the term “New Jersey house”, there are alternative names for the genre: “In the UK, for fairly unfathomable reasons, it became known as garage music (named after the Paradise Garage in New York), while in NJ itself they simply called it club (or perhaps more pertinently, the Jersey sound,” Mix Mag reported in July 2020. Newark female singers remixed by house music DJ Larry Levan included Gwen Guthrie (“Ain’t Nothin’ Goin On But The Rent”) and Taana Gardner (“Heartbeat”). In 1992, Union County’s Aly-Us released its deep-house hit “Follow Me.” Abigail Adams’s house-music record label and store Movin’ Records in Newark’s neighbor East Orange was another contributor to the Jersey Sound. The Jersey club scene also gave rise to the ball culture scene in Newark hotels and nightclubs. “Queen of House” Crystal Waters and other house luminaries performed on the Newark scene. DJ Kerri Chandler, another Zanzibar DJ, was another pioneer of the “Jersey sound” variety of house music. Jersey artists like Jomanda, with the crossover hit “Got a Love for You,” found success in the early 1990s house-music scene. Some have said that “when New York went to hip hop during this period , Jersey stayed with the club. Because of Zanzibar.”

New Mexico music

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

Origins#

The musical history of New Mexico goes back to pre-colonial times, but the sounds that define New Mexico music begin particularly with the ancestral Puebloans. Their music survived in the traditional songs of the Pueblo people with wind instruments such as the Anasazi flute, as well as the chants and drum beats of the Navajo and Apache. In Santa Fe de Nuevo México, the Hispanos of New Mexico brought Christian liturgical music, the violin, and the Spanish guitar, and Mexico brought with it the traditions of mariachi and ranchera. After New Mexico became a territory, the people of the American frontier brought the traditions of country and Cajun music. This was when the first forms of New Mexico music began to be played. Western was an adaption of country and Cajun, accompanied by traditionally Mexican and Native American instruments. New Mexico music is distinguished by its bouncy and steady rhythm, while accompanied by instruments common in Pueblo music, Western, Norteño, Apache music, country, mariachi, and Navajo music. Country and western music lend their drum and/or guitar style sections, while the steadiness of the rhythm owes its origins to the music of the Apache, Navajo, and Pueblo. And the differing rates of that tempo comes from the three common ranchera rhythm speeds, the polka at 2/4 (ranchera polkeada), the waltz at 3/4 (ranchera valseada), and/or the bolero at 4/4 (bolero ranchero). After statehood, the music was sung at parties and in homes as traditional folk music, and New Mexico music grew in popularity with native New Mexicans, mostly with the Pueblo, Navajo, Apache, Neomexicanos, and the descendants of the American frontier. Musicians in the genre received prominent airtime on KANW, and international recognition on the syndicated Val De La O Show.

New musick

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

Etymology#

On 26 November 1977, Sounds magazine published an issue entitled “New Musick”, the front cover was done by Steven Lavers with editorials by music journalists Jane Suck and Jon Savage. Savage wrote a piece on an emerging scene and style of music known as “new musick”, suggesting that punk rock was becoming stagnant and evolving into new, more experimental forms, which he noted as “post punk projections”. His editorial stated “New Musick is too many cigarettes, too much depression and too little heart.” Savage then remarked: He described the movement as “Clean teen beat groups cleaning up and minting millions from where the Groovies’ left off and starting where the Jam got boring. Synthemesc nouveau pop”. Music journalists Simon Reynolds, David Buckley, David Wilkinson, and Theo Cateforis retrospectively cited Savage’s editorial as the starting point for post-punk as a musical genre. During the late 1970s, the terms “new musick”, “new wave” and “post-punk” would all be used interchangeably by British music publications. Additionally, the subgenre “cold wave” would also be coined in the November 1977 Sounds “New Musick” article, with members of Kraftwerk, Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, being displayed on the front cover. Writer Mimi Haddon suggested the term “New Musick” may have referred to the division of Germany into East and West and that the emphasis on “all things German in opposition to “American and rock ‘n’ roll,” that Reynolds identifies may also have inspired the quasi-Germanic spelling of “Musick,” which resembles the German word Musik, as well as the quasi-Germanic capitalization of the words.”

New Orleans blues

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

Characteristics#

As a style, New Orleans blues is primarily driven by piano and enlivened by Caribbean rhythms and Dixieland music. It is generally cheerful in delivery regardless of the subject, with a laidback tempo and complex rhythms falling just behind the beat. Vocals range from laidback crooning to full-throated gospel shouting.

History#

New Orleans is generally credited as the birthplace of jazz music, but has attracted less attention as a center of the blues. The 12-bar blues were well known in the city before most of the rest of the country. Buddy Bolden’s band was remembered at excelling on playing blues before 1906. Anthony Maggio’s “I Got the Blues” was an early example of published blues sheet music from 1908. The Original Dixieland Jass Band’s “Livery Stable Blues”, generally considered the first jazz record, is in a fast blues form. Although New Orleans has drawn to it and produced fewer blues musicians than other major US urban centers with large African-American populations, it has been the center of a distinctive form of blues music, which has been pursued by some notable musicians and produced important recordings, such as Professor Longhair and Guitar Slim, who both had regional, R&B and even mainstream chart hits. In the period after World War II, a very large number of recordings were produced in the city that were informed by the blues, but had strong R&B and pop influences that anticipated rock and roll and are difficult to classify. Other significant figures playing keyboard-based blues include James Booker, whose organ instrumental “Gonzo” reached the top 50 in the Billboard chart in 1960 and was followed by a series of minor single hits. The most significant blues guitarist to emerge from the city in the post-World War II period was Guitar Slim, originally from the Delta. His “The Things That I Used to Do”, which combined gospel, blues and R&B, was a major R&B hit in 1954 and may have influenced the development of later soul music. featuring an electric guitar solo with distorted overtones. Other important blues guitarists from the city include Snooks Eaglin, who recorded both acoustic folk and electric-based R&B, Also among the major figures of the genre was Dr. John, who began as a guitarist and enjoyed regional success with the Bo Diddley–influenced “Storm Warning” in 1959, and had a highly successful career from the 1960s after moving to Los Angeles, mixing R&B with psychedelic rock and using New Orleans-themed aesthetics. The careers of many New Orleans bluesmen declined in the 1960s, as rock and roll and soul began to dominate popular music, but revived in the 1970s, when there was renewed interest in their recordings.

New Orleans hip-hop

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

Origins and early development#

New Orleans hip hop originated from a decade of local musical activity in the late 1980s, culminating in the distinct style known as “bounce” in the early 1990s. The genre is profoundly influenced by New Orleans’ traditional African-American musical forms. These include Mardi Gras Indian chants, brass band music, and second-line parades, which are frequently integrated into bounce tracks through sampling or live instrumentation. For example, the incorporation of the Rebirth Brass Band’s “I Feel Like Funkin’ It Up” on Da Sha Ra’s “I Feel Like Bootin’ Up” (1993) exemplifies this direct musical integration. While intensely local in its expression, foundational elements of bounce music also drew from external influences. Key examples include the “Triggaman bells” and 808 drum-machine beats sampled from The Showboys’ 1986 single “Drag Rap”, a track by a New York group, and instrumentals like “Brown Beats” from California DJ Cameron Paul. The “Cheeky Blakk beat”, a variation on “Brown Beats” created by Mannie Fresh for New Orleans rapper Cheeky Blakk in the mid-1990s, became another frequently utilized signature sound of early bounce. Pioneering tracks include MC T. Tucker’s “Where Dey At” (1991), performed over a DJ Irv backing track that sampled “Drag Rap”. This song gained significant local popularity at clubs such as Uptown Hollygrove’s Ghost Town. DJ Jimi subsequently recorded his own version, “Where They At”, which was studio-recorded into a full-length album in 1992. Proto-bounce tracks, such as Gregory D and DJ Mannie Fresh’s “Buck Jump Time (Project Rapp)” (1989), are recognized for their hyper-specific lyrical references to New Orleans neighborhoods and a distinctive sousaphone-driven bass line. The origins of New Orleans bounce reveal a unique synthesis of globally circulating hip hop elements with deeply localized New Orleans musical traditions. This fusion created a distinct sound that, despite its regional dominance, initially faced challenges in gaining broader national recognition. The distinctiveness of New Orleans hip hop was not solely about inventing entirely new sounds but rather about recontextualizing, reinterpreting, and localizing existing hip hop elements through a unique New Orleans cultural lens. The genre’s local character was powerfully forged through the integration of indigenous New Orleans musical forms, lyrical themes (such as roll calls of wards and neighborhoods), and participatory performance styles onto these imported rhythmic foundations. This exemplifies a dynamic process of cultural adaptation and innovation, where global musical trends are localized and imbued with specific regional identity, creating something uniquely New Orleanian. The initial regional limitation, despite internal popularity, suggests that this intensely local nature, while a strength for community identity and authenticity, might have initially hindered broader mainstream appeal until artists like Big Freedia achieved crossover international audiences. This highlights the tension between local cultural preservation and global commercial viability.

New Orleans rhythm and blues

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

Characteristics#

New Orleans rhythm and blues can be characterized by predominant piano, “singing” horns, and call-and-response elements. Clear influences of Kansas City Swing bands can be heard through the extensive use of trumpet and saxophone solos. A “double” bass line, when the guitar and bass play in unison, was combined with a strong backbeat to make the music easy to dance to. In addition, the usage of blue notes is characteristic. Like most blues, New Orleans R&B typically follows a standard three-stanza form that contains tonic, subdominant, and dominant chords. Within these chords, the three “blue notes”, also known as flatted notes, are the third, fifth, and seventh scale degrees. In New Orleans R&B, the flatted third is particularly notable.

New Orleans soul

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

Origins#

The initial songs in this soul style emerged from the talents of songwriter and producer Allen Toussaint in 1960. Subsequently, this musical style gained significant traction among other local and regional artists. By the 1990s, New Orleans Soul had captured the interest of many singers from various soul music genres. Originally cultivated in New Orleans, its influence remained relatively contained within the city boundaries. However, some musicians from Memphis acknowledged the genre as a significant influence on the development of their own style of soul. Moreover, it left an imprint on Northern Soul and British soul. Around 1965, Toussaint, a pivotal figure in this genre, produced a slower variation that played a crucial role in the birth of funk.

New Partisans

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

The mid-1980s in Yugoslavia were marked by political turmoil. Death of Yugoslavia’s president for life Josip Broz Tito in 1980 was followed by growing liberalization in arts and culture, but also by the growing problem of foreign debt, and by protests of Kosovo Albanians, which demanded more autonomy within the country. By the mid-1980s, the tensions between Yugoslav republics emerged, and nationalism was on the rise. However, despite the tensions in the country, the Yugoslav rock scene flourished as one of the richest and most vibrant rock scenes of Europe. Prior to the appearance of New Partisans, the 1980s Yugoslav rock had already seen several music scenes and subcultural movements with the prefix New. The Yugoslav new wave scene, closely associated with the Yugoslav punk rock scene, emerged in the late 1970s on the country’s rock scene, up to that point dominated by progressive and hard rock bands. The new wave scene’s peak in the early 1980s came in synchronicity with the death of Josip Broz Tito and new tendencies in art and culture. The bands like Pankrti, Paraf, Azra, Prljavo Kazalište, Pekinška Patka, Film, Haustor, Lačni Franz, Idoli, Električni Orgazam, Šarlo Akrobata, U Škripcu, Piloti and others recorded songs which were critical of the Yugoslav social reality, experimenting and conjoining with other art forms, with some veteran acts, like Bijelo Dugme, Parni Valjak and Buldožer, joining in on the new, exuberant scene. In 1984, the band started the informal art collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (German for New Slovenian Art) with visual arts group IRWIN and Scipion Nasice Sisters Theatre, continuing to provoke the Yugoslav public. Finally, in Sarajevo, the New Primitivism movement emerged in the early 1980s, initially in the form of humorous sketches in Radio Sarajevo show Primus, and later through the work of the bands Zabranjeno Pušenje and Elvis J. Kurtović & His Meteors and their show Top lista nadrealista. Through their ironical songs and their Pythonesque TV show, the New Primitives ridiculed the staggering Yugoslav economy and Yugoslav social reality, the petty-bourgeois mentality, and their predecessors on the Yugoslav scene, including Yugoslav new wave bands and their city’s and the country’s biggest band, Bijelo Dugme. In his 2013 book Kako smo propevali: Jugoslavija i njena muzika (How We Started to Sing: Yugoslavia and Its Music), Serbian and Yugoslav music journalist and author Ivan Ivačković dedicated a chapter to New Partisans movement entitled “Poslednje bitke Mirka i Slavko” (“The Last Battles of Mirko and Slavko”). In the chapter, Ivačković pointed out that the Yugoslavs born in the mid-1960s, like Plavi Orkestar leader Saša Lošić, got a notion of the Yugoslav Partisans struggle through popular 1960s and 1970s comic Mirko and Slavko and Partisan films. He wrote:

New pop

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

Characteristics#

Many new pop artists created music that blended less commercial and experimental elements with a pop appeal. The concept of entryism became popular among groups of the time, reflecting their attempts to infiltrate mainstream culture with unconventional styles. New Music acts were characterized by danceable rhythms, an androgynous aesthetic, heavy use of synthesizers and drum machines, and lyrical themes exploring the darker side of romance. These acts were predominantly British and drew inspiration from rockabilly, Motown, ska, and reggae, incorporating African rhythms to create what was described as a “fertile, stylistic cross-pollination.” Author Simon Reynolds observed that the new pop movement represented “a conscious and brave attempt to bridge the separation between ‘progressive’ pop and mass/chart pop – a divide which has existed since 1967, and is also, broadly, one between boys and girls, middle-class and working-class.” The terms “New Music” or “new pop” were used loosely to describe various styles and artists, including synth-pop groups such as the Human League, soul-disco acts such as ABC, new wave performers like Elvis Costello and the Pretenders, and jangle pop bands like Orange Juice. American MTV stars, including Michael Jackson, were also associated with the movement. Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote that New Music was more about the artists themselves than their specific sound. It attracted teenage girls and males disillusioned with traditional, “phallic” guitar-driven rock. New Music was a singles-oriented phenomenon, emphasizing both 7-inch and the then-new 12-inch formats, in contrast to the 1970s emphasis on album-oriented rock.

New Primitivism

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

Characteristics#

Basing itself on the spirit of the Bosnian ordinary populace outside of the cultural mainstream, the movement was credited with introducing the jargon of Sarajevo mahalas (brimming with slang and Turkish loanwords) into the official Yugoslav public scene. Many of the New Primitivism songs and sketches involve stories of “small people” — pensioners, coalminers, petty criminals, street thugs, provincial girls, etc. — being placed in unusual and absurd situations. Stylistically, the New Primitives’ methods drew comparisons to Monty Python’s Flying Circus, sharing the short sketch form and utilizing absurdity as a means of eliciting laughs from an audience. The embodiment of New Primitivism is a youth who both reads challenging works such as Hegel’s The Phenomenology of Spirit, but also does not mind having fistfights. In the most general sense, the movement was established as a Sarajevan reaction to the New wave and Punk movements that had been sweeping the Yugoslav alternative music scene for several years already. Some of New Primitivism’s most notable traits were promoting and popularizing Sarajevan street jargon and slang that had not been well-known outside the city in others parts of Yugoslavia where Serbo-Croatian is spoken. In doing so - by depicting local fringe characters such as petty criminals, neighbourhood kafana alcoholics, lesser-known pop-cultural figures, blue-collar workers and local streets hoodlums - the movement exposed aspects of the Sarajevan mahala culture to a wider Yugoslav audience and eventually came to be considered a locally patriotic and eclectic expression of Sarajevan urban culture. The movement’s protagonists had a specific view of New Primitivism. Perhaps the most prominent of them, Nele Karajlić, explained it as being “created within clearly defined historical coordinates, both spatially and temporally, at the precise midpoint between the spot where Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914 and the spot where the Olympic flame was lit in February 1984 while temporally, it took place some time during the period between Tito’s death in May 1980 and the beginning of the Agrokomerc Affair in 1987” and seeing it as “resistance to any form of establishment – cultural, social, and political – not just the rock’n’roll one that dominated Sarajevo at the time with so-called ‘dinosaur’ bands like Bijelo Dugme and Indexi, which the new primitives held in contempt to a certain extent”. The movement’s dominant method of social and cultural critique was to fully localize the narrative to Sarajevo, and to use local urban legends, cultural and social phenomena and living fringe characters as catalysts for painting a wider political picture. In doing so, the movement became both a rigidly local expressional form that gave a platform to the language, culture and myths of the Sarajevan streets, while also breaking out into the wider Yugoslav arena. A major characteristic of the movement was the adoption of pseudonyms by all of its leading figures, which tended to be either comical in nature or based on the semantics of nicknames that have always been very prevalent in Sarajevo. The main reason for this was so that none of the members could be ethnically identified. The second reason was to give a platform to the stylization of nicknames that was prominent in Sarajevo — a form of local patriotism and self-mockery. The movement’s “chief ideologue” referred to New Primitivism simply as “the first Sarajevan bullet to hit its target since Princip assassinated Ferdinand in 1914”.

New rave

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

Etymology#

The term was coined by Klaxons founder Jamie Reynolds, who later declared they were not new rave, describing it as a “joke that’s got out of hand”, stating that: The genre is a play on the term “new wave” as well as being a “new” version of rave music. During the late 2000s, music blogs and press such as NME and The Guardian further popularized the term. Though several artists associated with the scene rejected the label.

New Romantic

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

Characteristics#

The New Romantic movement is sometimes characterized as a reaction to the direction in which the punk rock movement was evolving, and was heavily influenced by former glam rock stars of the 1970s such as David Bowie and Roxy Music. In terms of style, it rejected the austerity and anti-fashion stance which was becoming increasingly predominant in punk. Both sexes often dressed in androgynous clothing and wore cosmetics such as eyeliner and lipstick, partly derived from earlier punk fashions. Russian constructivism, Bonnie Prince Charlie, French Incroyables and 1930s’ Cabaret, Hollywood starlets, Puritans and the Pierrot clown, with any look being possible if it was adapted to be unusual and striking. Common hairstyles included quiffs, and Helen Robinson’s Covent Garden shop PX, Unlike some other bands of the early 1980s, particularly those of the predominantly Midlands-based 2 tone ska revival (the Specials, the Selecter, the Beat) who wrote lyrics addressing social issues such as unemployment and urban decay, the New Romantics adopted an escapist and aspirational stance. With its interest in design, marketing and image, the movement has been seen by some as an acceptance of Thatcherism; style commentator Peter York even suggested that it was aligned with the New Right. Alan Bissett also made the connection, opining “Where New Wave and Ska still represented something of a challenge to the emerging Thatcherite creed, the New Romantics embraced it,” whilst Spandau Ballet were labelled “The sound of Thatcherism” by Guardian writer Michael Hann.

New Simplicity

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

Goals#

At the end of the 1970s, the German movement was first recognized by Aribert Reimann, who named seven composers, not previously associated as a group, who had each come to similar positions “in an entirely personal fashion”. These seven composers were: Hans-Jürgen von Bose, Hans-Christian von Dadelsen, Detlev Müller-Siemens, Wolfgang Rihm, Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Ulrich Stranz, and Manfred Trojahn. In general, these composers strove for an immediacy between the creative impulse and the musical result (in contrast to the elaborate precompositional planning characteristic of the avant garde), with the intention also of communicating more readily with audiences. In some cases this meant a return to the tonal language of the 19th century as well as to the traditional forms (symphony, sonata) and instrumental combinations (string quartet, piano trio) which had been avoided for the most part by the avant garde. For others it meant working with simpler textures or the employment of triadic harmonies in non-tonal contexts. Of the composers most closely identified with this movement, only Wolfgang Rihm has established a significant reputation outside of Germany. At least three writers have gone so far as to argue that one of the Darmstadt avant-garde composers against whom the New Simplicity was ostensibly rebelling, Karlheinz Stockhausen, had anticipated their position through a radical simplification of his style accomplished between 1966 and 1975, which culminated in his Tierkreis melodies. Another writer finds Rihm’s inclusive aesthetic better viewed as “an expansion of constructivist concerns . . . than as a negation of them”.

New wave music

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

Etymology and characteristics#

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, new wave music encompassed a wide variety of pop-oriented styles that shared a quirky, lighthearted, and humorous tone. as a catch-all for the various styles of music that emerged after punk rock. The phrase also alluded to the French New Wave, a 1960s film movement known for its experimental approach and departure from traditional forms. Common characteristics of new wave music include a humorous or quirky pop approach, the use of electronic sounds, and a distinctive visual style in music videos and fashion. According to Simon Reynolds, new wave music had a twitchy, agitated feel. New wave musicians often played choppy rhythm guitars with angular riffs and fast tempos; keyboards, and stop-start song structures and melodies are common, with the use of jerky rhythms, and synthesizers. Reynolds noted new-wave vocalists sound high-pitched, geeky, and suburban. This rise in technology made the visual style of new wave musicians important for their success. In the early 1980s, virtually every new pop and rock act, particularly those that employed synthesizers, was tagged as “new wave” by the U.S. general public. New wave may be seen as an attempt to reconcile “the energy and rebellious attitude of punk” with traditional forms of pop songwriting, as seen in the rockabilly riffs and classic craftsmanship of Elvis Costello and the 1960s mod influences of the Jam. Paul Weller, who called new wave “the pop music of the Seventies”, explained to Chas de Whalley in 1977: Although new wave shares punk’s do-it-yourself artistic philosophy, the musicians were more influenced by the light strains of 1960s pop while opposed to mainstream “corporate” rock, which they considered creatively stagnant, as well as the generally abrasive and political bents of punk rock. who in particular used new wave influences to lay the groundwork for the Minneapolis sound.

New wave of American heavy metal

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

History#

The new wave of American heavy metal has its origins in a group of post-grunge acts from the 1990s that brought heavy metal “back to its core brutality” and drawing not from the traditional blues formula but from thrash metal and punk. The nu metal genre was popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Other roots of NWOAHM are attributed to bands such as Pantera, Biohazard, and Machine Head. The producers behind the 2005 documentary Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey have written of the NWOAHM: “In essence, NWOAHM can embody the seething aggression of the ‘hardcore’ hormone, but play a type of acrobatic, precise, technical thrash/death metal synthesis regularly touched by the melody of traditional metal, but often just briefly. Vocally, these bands huddle around Pantera-derived roar, leaning toward a death metal bark, but often with ‘clean’ or ‘sung’ vocals as ear candy, sometimes from a member of the band who is not the front man.” They also reference Unearth, Shadows Fall, and Lamb of God as “leaders of the pack”.

New wave of British heavy metal

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

In the second half of the 1970s, the United Kingdom was in a state of social unrest and widespread poverty as a result of the ineffective social politics of both Conservative and Labour Party governments during a three-year period of economic recession. As a consequence of deindustrialisation, the unemployment rate was exceptionally high, especially among working class youth. It continued to rise in the early 1980s, peaking in February 1983. The discontent of so many people caused social unrest with frequent strikes, and culminated in a series of riots, including one in Brixton and another in Toxteth. During this period, the mass of young people, deprived of the prospect of even relatively low-skill jobs that were available to the previous generations, searched for different ways to earn money in the music and entertainment businesses. The explosion of new bands and new musical styles coming from the UK in the late 1970s was a result of their efforts to make a living in the economic depression that hit the country before and during the governments of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The desperation and the violent reaction of a generation robbed of a safe future are well-represented by the British punk movement of 1977–1978, whose rebellion against the establishment continued diluted in the new wave and post-punk music of the 1980s. These self-proclaimed punks were politically militant, relishing their anarchic attitude and stage practices like pogo dancing. They wore short and spiked hairstyles or shaved heads, often with safety pins and ripped clothes, and considered musical prowess unimportant as long as the music was simple and loud. However, not all working-class male youths embraced the punk movement; some preferred to escape from their grim reality in heavy metal, which was equally effective in providing fun, stress relief, and peer companionship, otherwise denied because of their unemployment.

New wave of classic rock

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

Characteristics#

Classic rock revival bands perform in a style influenced by the sounds of the popular rock sounds of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, including hard rock, psychedelic rock, blues rock, progressive rock and glam rock. Some revival bands aim emulate earlier sounds while other groups incorporate contemporary elements into their sound. Brad Angle has described the sound as “hard-hitting, swaggering, riff-driven rock ’n’ roll built around a core vocal-guitar-bass-drum configuration”.

New wave of new wave

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

Characteristics#

Writing about the new wave of new wave band Elastica, author Steven Wells summarised the scene: “The mid-’90s saw a clutch of new punky bands getting a lot of music press attention in the UK. Labelled the ‘new wave of new wave’, these bands looked back to The Buzzcocks and Blondie in much the same way that their Britpop compatriots (like Oasis and Blur) looked back to The Beatles and the Small Faces.” The new wave of new wave was short-lived. The NME played a major part in promoting and covering the genre, and promoted the On event, which featured many of the bands they had labelled NWONW. In a 1994 feature in Melody Maker, critic Simon Reynolds asserted that the new wave of new wave “resurrected punk’s ethics of drug use, ie. speed = good (cos it increases IQ, self-confidence, aggression), dope and E = bad (‘cos they make you mellow, quiescent and full of love).” Reynolds also observed that ambient techno was a “readymade enemy” for the NWONW bands, “the ’90s subcultural equivalent of the mid-70s hippies.”

New wave of traditional heavy metal

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

Origin#

The N.W.O.T.H.M. initially started in the mid-2000s with a number of bands, such as Cauldron, Skull Fist, and Enforcer, who began to write and record music that reflected the style and sound of classic heavy metal. These bands combined elements of the metal genres from the ’70s and ’80s, especially those of the N.W.O.B.H.M., although some bands are also influenced from genres such as speed metal, power metal and hard rock.

New Weird America

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

Etymology#

The term was coined by David Keenan in the issue 234 (August 2003) of The Wire, following the Brattleboro Free Folk Festival organized by Matt Valentine and Ron J. Schneiderman. It is a play on Greil Marcus’s phrase “Old Weird America” as described in his book Invisible Republic, which deals with the lineage connecting the pre-World War II folk performers on Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music to Bob Dylan and his milieu.

New York hardcore

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

Origins#

The origins of New York’s punk rock scene can be traced back to such sources as late 1960s trash culture and an early 1970s underground rock movement centered on the Mercer Arts Center in Greenwich Village, where the New York Dolls performed. In early 1974, this early punk scene began to develop around the CBGB club, also in lower Manhattan, featuring groups and musicians like Television, Richard Hell, Patti Smith, the Ramones, the Heartbreakers and Jayne County The New York hardcore scene particularly grew of out of the section of this punk scene that was documented on the 1982 New York Thrash compilation, with groups like the Stimulators, the Eliminators and the Mad. The band soon became the godfathers of New York Hardcore and one of the scene’s most crucial bands. Around the same time the term “hardcore” started being used instead of “punk rock”. Roger Miret of Agnostic Front asserts that “We started using the term ‘hardcore’ because we wanted to separate ourselves from the punk scene that was happening in New York at the time … We were rougher kids living in the streets. It had a rougher edge”. The scene emerged around 1981, when members of Agnostic Front, Cause for Alarm, Kraut, Murphy’s Law and Antidote began to spend time together on Avenue A and performing at A7 in Manhattan. Rock clubs like Max’s Kansas City, the Ritz and CBGB’s also quickly became crucial spots for this newly formed scene. This scene split from New York hardcore as the decade progressed. Nausea were a key figure in the scene during this period, helping to cultivate a new scene in the city based around politics and squatting.

New York soul

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

Labels#

While there were a number of New York soul labels, including Scepter, Sue, Shout and Colla, the most well-known label was Atlantic Records, which dominated 1960s soul. Atlantic Records singers included Solomon Burke, Doris Troy and Aretha Franklin. 1967-68 was a peak period for Atlantic, as the string of hits coming from the Stax roster was augmented by the tremendous crossover success of Franklin, who shot to fame, becoming the preeminent female soul artist of the era, and earning the title “Queen of Soul”. Jerry Wexler signed Franklin to Atlantic in January 1967 after the expiry of her contract with Columbia Records. She had a run of seven consecutive singles that made both the US pop and soul Top 10, and of which five were million-sellers; “I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You)” (b/w “Do Right Woman”) (soul #1, pop #9), “Respect” (soul and pop #1), “Baby, I Love You” (soul #1, pop #4), “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” (soul #2, pop #8), “Chain of Fools” (soul #1, pop #2), “Since You’ve Been Gone” (1968, soul #1, pop #5) and “Think” (1968, soul #1, pop #7).

New Yorkshire

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

Response#

In the late 2000s, some Yorkshire bands showed their distaste for the cleanly produced style of New Yorkshire but instead incorporating elements of grunge. The forefront groups in this grunge revival movement were Leeds bands Dinosaur Pile-Up, Pulled Apart by Horses, Old Romantic Killer Band and Wonderswan, as well as nearby groups Above Them and the Tempus.

New Zealand gamelan

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

History#

In May 1974 the Indonesian Embassy in Wellington presented the NZBC Orchestra (now the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra) with a set of gongs. They were first played in November of that year after the composer Jack Body, who had spent time in Indonesia in the early 1970s, wrote a piece Resonance Music for guitar and six percussionists. Also in 1974 Allan Thomas, who became a lecturer in music at Victoria University of Wellington, returned to New Zealand bringing an antique gamelan orchestra with him. He had studied gamelan at the Tropen Museum in Amsterdam and lived in Cirebon, in north-west Java. Another early performance of gamelan was at the 1976 South Pacific Festival of Arts in Rotorua. In 1999 Thomas and Body organised the BEAT! Festival in Wellington to mark the 25th anniversary of gamelan in New Zealand. He composed for the university’s Gamelan Padhang Moncar (Javanese style gamelan orchestra) and has collaborated with several composers including Australian composer Paul Grabowsky on a piece called The Theft of Sita (2000) and Jack Body. As at 2021 Victoria has two gamelan: the Gamelan Padhang Moncar and the Gamelan Taniwha Jaya. The latter is a Balinese Gong Kebyar which was purchased by Gareth Farr in 2003. Other gamelan orchestras were set up in Auckland, Dunedin and Christchurch by the late 1990s. By 2008 there were Central Javanese gamelan at the University of Otago, Victoria University and in Auckland, gamelan gong kebyar at the University of Canterbury and Massey University and Cirebon gamelan at Victoria; there were gamelan tutors at four universities: Otago, Canterbury, Massey and Auckland. Gamelan was introduced to the University of Otago in 1995 by Professor Henry Johnson and the first set of bronze instruments from Central Java arrived in 1996. In Christchurch a Balinese Gong Kebyar was established at the University of Canterbury in 1995 by Elaine Dobson, who composed for the group.

New Zealand hip-hop

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

Early years and Māori influence#

Some of the first hip hop musicians to achieve recognition combined American styles with traditional Māori language songs. The music video for Dalvanius Prime’s 1984 popular hit track “Poi E” incorporated hip hop dance elements, making it the first time New Zealanders viewed hip hop culture in association with a local recording. Upper Hutt Posse likewise combined hip hop and Māori culture in their 1988 single “E Tu”, which is recognised as New Zealand’s first pure hip hop single. A bootleg recording of their song “Hardcore Hiphop” reached number one on Christchurch student radio in February 1988. Some rappers, such as the members of Upper Hutt Posse, became known for politicised lyrics in support of tino rangatiratanga (Māori sovereignty). Another popular Māori group which incorporated hip hop music was Moana and the Moahunters, which won a New Zealand Music Industry award for best Māori recording in 1992, speaking out against the perceived racism they saw against Māori people in New Zealand. They cited the rarity of airtime on national radio for Māori music and the exclusion from the mainstream music industry as reflective of the wider societal problem. The awarded song is called “AEIOU (Akona Te Reo)”, and translates as “Learn the Language”. Its release was directed primarily at Māori youth who did not speak Māori. The majority of the lyrics are in English. Early hip hop releases in New Zealand included the collection Ak89 - In Love With These Rhymes, compiled by Simon Laan and released by Auckland radio bFm in 1989 (on cassette only), and a variety of releases by Southside Records. Amongst these were releases by Urban Disturbance featuring a young rapper, Zane Lowe, now a UK radio personality, and MC OJ & Rhythm Slave. By the late 1980s, the South Auckland and West Auckland hip hop scenes were thriving, with dozens of young acts, many promoted as part of the Voodoo Rhyme syndicate which featured acts such as the Semi MCs, MC Slam & DJ Jam, Total Effect, Sisters Underground, Enemy Productions (which featured a very young Dei Hamo), Boy C & the BB3 (which later became Three the Hard Way), the Chain Gang and others. Most of the acts that joined the Voodoo Rhyme Syndicate were discovered through talent contests by Voodoo Rhyme Syndicate founder, DJ Andy Vann. The Voodoo Rhyme Syndicate hosted Voodoo dance parties to raise funds to record the acts, and formed Voodoo vinyl in 1989. Voodoo Vinyl’s first release in 1989 was Enemy Productions Stop Tagging produced by founder Andy Vann. Other notable related releases include Semi MCs’ “Set Your Body Free & Trust Me” and MC Slam & DJ Jam’s “Prove Me Wrong”, both of which achieved Top 40 success in New Zealand. A DJ competition was held in Auckland in 1989, with DJ Ned Roy winning. The first major New Zealand commercial hip hop hit was “Hip Hop Holiday” by 3 The Hard Way, featuring the vocal stylings of Bobbylon (from the seminal 1990s Reggae/Punk band Hallelujah Picassos). Released by Deepgrooves Entertainment and distributed by Festival Records, it replayed “Dreadlock Holiday” by 10CC and became a number one hit in 1994 - the first local hip hop single to reach that spot. Upper Hutt Posse’s DJ, DLT, also influenced the local scene in Auckland, including Joint Force, Che Fu and Dam Native. DLT began the influential radio show True Skool Hip Hop Show, which joined Wellington’s Wednesday Night Jam in promoting hip hop. Simon Grigg & Nick D’Angelo championed hip hop on a dedicated hip hop radio show on bFm).

New Zealand reggae

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

History#

Reggae bands in New Zealand the 1970s and 1980s included Herbs, Dread, Beat and Blood, Unity Pacific and the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The 1979 Bob Marley concert at Western Springs Stadium is credited with having a huge influence of the growth of reggae in the country and inspiring many prominent reggae artists The growth of the Rastafarian religion, particularly among Māori, was also a factor in the growth of the genre, and the high rates of use of marijuana among New Zealanders is likely to have had an influence. Reggae topped the charts in New Zealand in the early 1980s when Toots and the Maytals, the first artist to use the term “reggae” in song, went platinum with their song “Beautiful Woman”. The reggae scene is centred around the Waikato, Whanganui and the capital Wellington, with capital music having a more dub and jazz influenced sound. Most New Zealand reggae bands incorporate different stylistic influences, and the result is a unique combination of sounds. The scene is not without its detractors and is referred to derisively as “BBQ reggae”. The inference is that the music functions only as a boring, unchallenging backdrop for having a BBQ in the backyard. Sometimes this criticism is levelled at New Zealand reggae in particular, in contrast to other strains of reggae music. The most successful of recent acts is Fat Freddy’s Drop, who incorporate jazz, soul and dub influences and reflect the Wellington sound. They have won numerous awards and sold over 90,000 copies of their debut album. One of the most important groups of the last decade was Trinity Roots (1998–2005), who also melded sparse jazz melodies with their reggae to great effect. The Black Seeds are another group who have significant commercial success in recent times. Their albums On The Sun and Into the Dojo both sold double platinum and the group has toured extensively throughout Europe. Their latest album, Solid Ground, reached #15 on the US Reggae Charts. Other major groups include Katchafire, Cornerstone Roots, 1814, Kora, House of Shem and Tahuna Breaks. Major dub/electronic groups and solo artists include Pitch Black, Deep Fried Dub, Shapeshifter, International Observer and Salmonella Dub.

New-age music

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

Definition#

New-age music is defined more by the use and effect or feeling it produces rather than the instruments and genre used in its creation; it may be acoustic, electronic, or a mixture of both. New-age artists range from solo or ensemble performances using classical-music instruments ranging from the piano, acoustic guitar, flute, or harp to electronic musical instruments, or from Eastern instruments such as the sitar, tabla and tamboura. There is also a significant overlap of sectors of new-age music with ambient, classical, jazz, electronica, world, chillout, pop, and space music, among others. The two definitions typically associated with the new-age genre are: * New-age music with an ambient sound that has the explicit purpose of aiding meditation and relaxation, or aiding and enabling various alternative spiritual practices, such as alternative healing, yoga practice, guided meditation, or chakra auditing. The proponents of this definition are almost always musicians who create their music expressly for these purposes. To be useful for meditation, music must have repetitive dynamic and texture without sudden loud chords or improvisation, which could disturb the meditator. It is minimalist in conception, and musicians in the genre are mostly instrumentalists rather than vocalists. Subliminal messages are also used in new-age music, and the use of instruments along with sounds of animals (like whales, wolves and eagles) and nature (waterfalls, ocean waves, rain) is also popular. Flautist Dean Evenson was one of the first musicians to combine peaceful music with the sounds of nature, launching a genre that became popular for massage and yoga. Other prominent artists who create new-age music expressly for healing or meditation include Irv Teibel, Paul Horn, Deuter, Steven Halpern, Paul Winter, Lawrence Ball, Karunesh, Krishna Das, Deva Premal, Bhagavan Das, and Snatam Kaur. * Music found in the new-age sections of record stores. This is largely a definition of practicality, given the breadth of music classified as “new age” by retailers that are often less interested in finely grained distinctions between musical styles than are fans of those styles. Music that falls into this definition usually cannot be easily classified into other, more common definitions, but can contain almost any kind of music; it is more of a marketing slogan rather than musical category.

New-school hip-hop

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

Background#

Elements of new school had existed in some form in the popular culture since hip-hop’s birth. The first MC’s rapped over DJs swapping back and forth between two copies of the same record playing the same drum break, or playing instrumental portions or versions of a broad range of records. This part of the culture was initiated by DJ Kool Herc in 1973 using breaks from James Brown, the Incredible Bongo Band and English rock group Babe Ruth in his block parties. Brown’s music—“extensive vamps” in which his voice was “a percussive instrument with frequent rhythmic grunts”, and “with rhythm-section patterns … resembling West African polyrhythms”—was a keynote of hip-hop’s early days. By 1975, Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa had taken up Kool Herc’s breakbeat style of DJing, each with their own accompanying rappers. Flash was especially associated with an important break known as “The Bells”—a cut-up of the intro to Bob James’s jazz cover of Paul Simon’s “Take Me To The Mardi Gras”—while Bambaataa delighted in springing occasional rock music breaks from records like “Mary, Mary”, “Honky Tonk Women”, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and Grand Funk Railroad’s “Inside Looking Out” on unsuspecting b-boys. The earliest hip-hop records replaced the DJ with a live band playing funk and disco influenced tunes, or “interpolating” the tunes themselves, as in “Rapper’s Delight” (Sugar Hill, 1979) and “King Tim III (Personality Jock)” (Spring, 1979). It was the soft, futuristic funk closely tied to disco that ruled hip-hop’s early days on record, to the exclusion of the hard James Brown beats so beloved of the first b-boys. Figures such as Flash and Bambaataa were involved in some early instances of moving the sound away from that of a live band, as in Flash’s DJ track “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel” (Sugar Hill, 1981), and even innovating popular new sounds and subgenres, as in the synthesizer-laden electro of Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock” (Tommy Boy, 1982). Often though the rawer elements present in live shows did not make it past the recording studio. Bambaataa’s first records, for instance, two versions of “Zulu Nation Throwdown” (Winley, 1980), were recorded with just drums and rhymes. When Bambaataa heard the released records, a complete live band had been added. Something closer to his intentions can be heard on a portion of Death Mix, a low-quality bootleg of a Zulu Nation night at James Monroe High School in the Bronx, released without his permission on Winley Records in 1983. Likewise on the bootleg Live Convention ‘82 (Disco Wax, 1982), Grand Wizard Theodore cuts the first six bars of Rufus Thomas’s “Do the Funky Penguin” together for five and a half minutes while an MC raps over the top. Grandmaster Flash’s “Superrappin’” (Enjoy, 1979) had a pumping syncopated rhythm and The Furious Five emulating his spinbacks and needle drops and chanting that “that Flash is on the beatbox going …” The beatbox itself however, a drum machine which Flash had added to his turntable set-up some time earlier, was absent on the record, the drums being produced by a live drummer. Kool Moe Dee’s verbal personal attacks on Busy Bee Starski live at Harlem World in 1982 caused a popular sensation in hip-hop circles. In the same way, groups like the Cold Crush Brothers and The Force MCs were known for their routines, competitive attitude, and battle rhymes. Tapes of battles like these circulated widely, even without them becoming viable recordings. Apart from some social commentary like Melle Mel’s one verse on “Superrappin’”, Kurtis Blow’s ruefully comedic “The Breaks” (Mercury, 1980) and a spurt of records following the success of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message” (Sugar Hill, 1982), the old school specialized lyrically in party rhymes.

Newar music

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

Traditional music#

Traditional music refers to the music from the 16th century during the rule of King Mahendra Malla to the first decade of the 20th century. Traditional songs consist of hymns that describe various deities, songs about love and marriage, ballads, rice transplantation and historical songs in the form of narratives. The traditional musicians worship the Newar god of music and dance Nasah Dyah. Traditional Newar music has been arranged into a particular schedule. One of the dominant forms of traditional Newar music is Dapha music. Dapha music is classical Newar music that probably originated during late Lichhavi period and flourished in the Malla period. Basically, the songs of Dapha music are devotional songs based on classical ragas. Dapha music is played by bands known as Dapha Khalah that may be associated with traditional groups called Guthi. According to the ragas, certain songs are played at certain seasons or times of the day. The songs generally narrate or depict the mood of a particular season. Besides the seasonal and scheduled ragas, various ragas are played during specific events, such as Deepak raga (played when a monarch passes away). Seasons, their festivals and music accompanying them are as follows The schedule of different ragas played by Dapa on different times of day are as follows-

NE on Music Theory Print

Nederbeat

History#

Nederpop

Sixties Nederpop bands#

Seventies Nederpop bands#

Eighties Nederpop bands#

Negermusik

Nazi Germany#

Neo soul

Etymology#

Neo-bop

Musical style#

Neo-medieval music

16th–19th centuries#

Neo-prog

Characteristics#

Neo-psychedelia

Characteristics#

Neoclassical metal

Definition#

Neofolk

Characteristics#

Neomelodic music

Style#

Neoperreo

Origins and characteristics#

Neotango

The music#

Neotraditional country

History#

Nepalese rock

History#

Nerd music

Origins#

Nerd folk#

Nerdcore

Sound#

Neue Deutsche Härte

Characteristics#

Neue Deutsche Todeskunst

History#

Neue Deutsche Welle

History#

Neue Musik

Compositional means and styles#

Neues Geistliches Lied

History#

New beat

History#

New Complexity

Origins#

New flamenco

Origins#

New jack swing

Etymology#

New Jersey sound

History#

New Mexico music

Origins#

New musick

Etymology#

New Orleans blues

Characteristics#

History#

New Orleans hip-hop

Origins and early development#

New Orleans rhythm and blues

Characteristics#

New Orleans soul

Origins#

New Partisans

Political, social and cultural background#

New pop

Characteristics#

New Primitivism

Characteristics#

New rave

Etymology#

New Romantic