This is an etwinning project between two high schools: the Music school of Sparta in Greece and the Liceo Scientifico E. Pascal in Pompei, Italy. The topic of the project is rock music throughout the centuries. The students from both schools work in groups on different aspects of rock music from the '60s up to this day. These aspects include the background of rock music in each century, the most important artists, genres, songs as well as the influence it had on different generations, literature, lifestyle and so on. The goal is to make students aware of the different aspects of rock music, have them work in groups and search for information as well as produce their own music at the end of the project.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

George Harrison - I've got my eyes set on you

Air Supply - All out of love

Berlin - Take my breath away

Michael Jackson - Beat it

Survivor - Eye of the Tiger

Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine

Alice Cooper - Poison

'80s bands

Some of the ‘80s artists 
Although the music from the 1980s had their share of one-hit wonders, many artists have continued to persevere and enjoy a great deal of success. Artists like Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Phil Collins gained popularity in the 1980s and have been popular since that era. Other musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, and Bon Jovi are still creating best-selling albums and sellout concerts that are popular among young and old alike. 
Blondie
Bruce Springsteen 
Bucks Fizz 
Cher 
David Bowie 
Depeche Mode 
Diana Ross 
Dire Straits 
Dolly Parton 
Duran Duran 
Elvis Costello 
Erasure 
Garth Brooks 
John Lennon 
Lionel Richie 
Madonna 
Michael Jackson 
New Kids On The Block 
Olivia Newton-John
Paul McCartney 
Paula Abdul 
Phil Collins 
Prince 
Queen 
R.E.M 
Roxy Music
Sheena Easton 
Simple Minds 
The Bangles 
The Cure 

Rock '80s - Background

1980s rock

 

Punk rock

By the beginning of the 1980s, faster, more aggressive styles such as hardcore had become the predominant mode of punk rock. Since punk rock's initial popularity in the 1970s and the renewed interest created by the punk revival of the 1990s, punk rock continues to have a strong underground following. This has resulted in several evolved strains of hardcore punk.

New Wave

Punk rock had attracted devotees from the art and collegiate world and soon bands sporting a more literate, arty approach, such as Talking Heads, and Devo began to infiltrate the punk scene; in some quarters the description "New Wave" began to be used to differentiate these less overtly punk bands. Bands, such as The Cars, and The Go-Go's can be seen as pop bands marketed as New Wave; other existing acts, including The Police, The Pretenders and Elvis Costello, used the New Wave movement as the springboard for relatively long and critically successful careers, while "skinny tie" bands exemplified by The Knack, or the photogenic Blondie, began as punk acts and moved into more commercial territory.
Between 1982 and 1985, influenced by Kraftwerk, David Bowie, and Gary Numan, British New Wave went in the direction of such New Romantics as Spandau Ballet, Ultravox, Duran Duran, A Flock of Seagulls, Culture Club, Talk Talk and the Eurythmics, sometimes using the synthesizer to replace all other instruments. Some more traditional rock bands adapted to the video age and profited from MTV's airplay, most obviously Dire Straits', whose "Money for Nothing" gently poked fun at the station, despite the fact that it had helped make them international stars, but in general guitar-oriented rock was commercially eclipsed.

Post-punk

If hardcore most directly pursued the stripped down aesthetic of punk, and New Wave came to represent its commercial wing, post-punk emerged in the later 1970s and early '80s as its more artistic and challenging side. Major influences beside punk bands were The Velvet Underground, The Who, Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, and the New York based no wave scene which placed an emphasis on performance, including bands such as James Chance and the Contortions, DNA and Sonic Youth. Early contributors to the genre included the US bands Pere Ubu, Devo, The Residents and Talking Heads. The first wave of British post-punk included Gang of Four, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division, who placed less emphasis on art than their US counterparts and more on the dark emotional qualities of their music.  Although many post-punk bands continued to record and perform, it declined as a movement in the mid-1980s as acts disbanded or moved off to explore other musical areas, but it has continued to influence the development of rock music and has been seen as a major element in the creation of the alternative rock movement.

New waves and genres in heavy metal

Although many established bands continued to perform and record, heavy metal suffered a hiatus in the face of the punk movement in the mid-1970s. Part of the reaction saw the popularity of bands like Motörhead, who had adopted a punk sensibility, and Judas Priest, who created a stripped down sound, largely removing the remaining elements of blues music, from their 1978 album Stained Class. This change of direction was compared to punk and in the late 1970s became known as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM). These bands were soon followed by acts including Iron Maiden, Vardis, Diamond Head, Saxon, Def Leppard and Venom, many of which began to enjoy considerable success in the USA. In the same period Eddie Van Halen established himself as a metal guitar virtuoso after his band's self-titled 1978 album. Randy Rhoads and Yngwie Malmsteen also became established virtuosos, associated with what would be known as the neoclassical metal style.
Inspired by NWOBHM and Van Halen's success, a metal scene began to develop in Southern California from the late 1970s, based on the clubs of L.A.'s Sunset Strip and including such bands as Quiet Riot, Ratt, Mötley Crüe, and W.A.S.P., who, along with similarly styled acts such as New York's Twisted Sister, incorporated the theatrics (and sometimes makeup) of glam rock acts like Alice Cooper and Kiss. By the mid-1980s bands were beginning to emerge from the L.A. scene that pursued a less glam image and a rawer sound, particularly Guns N' Roses, breaking through with the chart-topping Appetite for Destruction (1987), and Jane's Addiction, who emerged with their major label debut Nothing's Shocking, the following year.
In the late 1980s metal fragmented into several subgenres, including thrash metal, which developed in the US from the style known as speed metal, under the influence of hardcore punk, with low-register guitar riffs typically overlaid by shredding leads. Lyrics often expressed nihilistic views or deal with social issues using visceral, gory language. It was popularised by the "Big Four of Thrash": Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer. Death metal developed out of thrash, particularly influenced by the bands Venom and Slayer. Power metal emerged in Europe in the late 1980s as a reaction to the harshness of death and black metal and was established by Germany's Helloween, who combined a melodic approach with thrash's speed and energy. 

Heartland rock

American working-class oriented heartland rock, characterized by a straightforward musical style, and a concern with the lives of ordinary, blue collar American people, developed in the second half of the 1970s.. Led by figures who had initially been identified with punk and New Wave, it was most strongly influenced by acts such as Bob Dylan, The Byrds, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Van Morrison, and the basic rock of '60s garage and the Rolling Stones.
Exemplified by the commercial success of singer songwriters Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, and Tom Petty, along with less widely known acts such as Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes and Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers, it was partly a reaction to post-industrial urban decline in the East and Mid-West, often dwelling on issues of social disintegration and isolation, beside a form of good-time rock and roll revivalism. The genre reached its commercial, artistic and influential peak in the mid-1980s, with Springsteen's Born in the USA (1984), topping the charts worldwide and spawning a series of top ten singles, together with the arrival of artists including John Mellencamp,  Heartland rock faded away as a recognized genre by the early 1990s, as rock music in general, and blue collar and white working class themes in particular, lost influence with younger audiences, and as heartland's artists turned to more personal works. Many heartland rock artists continue to record today with critical and commercial success, most notably Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and John Mellencamp, although their works have become more personal and experimental and no longer fit easily into a single genre.

The emergence of alternative rock

The term alternative rock was coined in the early 1980s to describe rock artists who did not fit into the mainstream genres of the time. Bands dubbed "alternative" had no unified style, but were all seen as distinct from mainstream music. Important alternative rock bands of the 1980s in the US included R.E.M., Hüsker Dü, Jane's Addiction, Sonic Youth, and the Pixies, and in the UK The Cure, New Order, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and The Smiths. They rejected the dominant synthpop of the early 1980s, marking a return to group-based guitar rock. Few of these early bands, with the exceptions of R.E.M. and The Smiths, achieved mainstream success, but despite a lack of spectacular album sales, they exerted a considerable influence on the generation of musicians who came of age in the 1980s and ended up breaking through to mainstream success in the 1990s.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Rock Music '70s


The history of rock in the 1970s is considered the first generation of classic rock. The sounds developed in the late 1960s featured prominently, with psychedelic bands writing heavier riffs and deeper lyrics. In the late 1970s, the roots of punk rock were born. Music in the late sixties was often led by the social activism movement, but in the seventies, society in general became more self absorbed. The early 70s were dominated by folk singers like Carol King, James Taylor and John Denver. This music was often referred to as hippie music. Disco music also became big in the 70s. Disco music influenced television shows, movies, and the way people dressed.
The Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band who in the 1960s earned recognition for their psychedelic and space rock music, and in the 1970s, as they evolved, for their progressive rock music. Pink Floyd’s work is marked by philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album cover art, and elaborative live shows. One of rock music’s most critically acclaimed and commercially successful acts, the group has sold over 200 million albums worldwide including 74.5 million certified units in the United States. Pink Floyd influenced progressive rock artists of the 1970s including Genesis and Yes.
Studio albums
  • The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967)
  • A Saucerful of Secrets (1968)
  • Soundtrack from the Film More (1969)
  • Ummagumma (1969)
  • Atom Heart Mother (1970)
  • Meddle (1971)
  • Obscured by Clouds (1972)
  • The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
  • Wish You Were Here (1975)
  • Animals (1977)
  • The Wall (1979)
  • The Final Cut (1983)
  • A Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987)
  • The Division Bell (1994) 
Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd album)
Wish You Were Here is the ninth studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd, released in September 1975. The album explores themes of absence, the music business, and the former band-mate Syd Barrett’s mental decline.

Lyrics
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell,
Blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field
From a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for tress?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl,
Year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.