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, November 13, 2011

                                                  The music of 70s...!!!

The early 1970s saw the rise of popular soft rock/pop rock music, with recording artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Fleetwood Mac, The Carpenters, Ray Stevens, Elton John, Carly Simon, Carole King, James Taylor, John Denver, The Eagles, America, Chicago, The Doobie Brothers, Paul McCartney and Wings, Bread and Steely Dan as well as the further rise of such popular, influential rhythm and blues (R&B) artists as multi-instrumentalist Stevie Wonder and the popular quintet The Jackson 5. A major event in music in the early 70s, were the deaths of popular rock stars Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison all at the age of 27. Funk, an offshoot of Soul music with a greater emphasis on beats, influences from rhythm and blues, jazz, and psychedelic rock, was also very popular. The mid-1970s also saw the rise of disco music, which dominated during the last half of the decade with bands like the Bee Gees, ABBA, Village People, Boney M, Donna Summer, KC and the Sunshine Band, etc. In response to this, rock music became increasingly hard-edged with artists such as Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Minimalism also emerged, led by composers such as Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Michael Nyman. This was a break from the intellectual serial music of the tradition of Schoenberg which lasted from the early 1900s to 1960s.
Experimental classical music influenced both art rock and progressive rock genres with bands such as Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis, King Crimson, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, The Moody Blues and Soft Machine. Hard rock and Heavy metal also emerged among British bands Led Zeppelin, Free, The Who, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, and Judas Priest. Rock opera was launched by Queen. Australian band AC/DC also found its hard rock origins in the early 1970s and its breakthrough in 1979's Highway to Hell, while popular American rock bands included Lynyrd Skynyrd, Aerosmith, Blue Öyster Cult, "shocksters" Alice Cooper and Kiss, and guitar-oriented Ted Nugent and Van Halen. In Europe, there was a surge of popularity in the early decade for glam rock. The mid-'70s saw the rise of punk music from its protopunk/garage band roots in the 1960s and early 1970s. Major acts include the Ramones, Blondie, Patti Smith, the Sex Pistols, and The Clash, while seminal band The Runaways would produce 1980s solo recording artists Joan Jett and Lita Ford. The highest-selling album was Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). It remained on the Billboard 200 albums chart for 741 weeks. Electronic instrumental prog rock was particularly significant in continental Europe, allowing bands like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Can, and Faust to circumvent the language barrier. Their synthesiser-heavy "Kraut rock", along with the work of Brian Eno (for a time the keyboard player with Roxy Music), would be a major influence on subsequent synth rock.[7] The mid-1970s, saw the rise of electronic art music musicians such as Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis, and Tomita, who with Brian Eno were a significant influence of the development of New Age Music.Japanese band Yellow Magic Orchestra helped pioneer synthpop,with their self-titled album(in 1978)setting a template with less minimalism and with a strong emphasis on melody, and drawing from a wider range of influences than had been employed by Kraftwerk.YMO also introduced the microprocessor-based Roland MC-8 sequencer and TR-808 rhythm machine to popular music.
In the first half of the 1970s many jazz musicians from the Miles Davis school achieve cross-over success through jazz-rock fusion with bands like Weather Report, Return to Forever,The Headhunters and The Mahavishnu Orchestra who also influence this genre and many others. In Germany, Manfred Eicher started the ECM label, which quickly made a name for 'chamber jazz'. Towards the end of the decade, Jamaican Reggae music, already popular in the Caribbean and Africa since the early 1970s, became very popular in the U.S. and in Europe, mostly because of reggae superstar and legend Bob Marley. The late '70s also saw the beginning of hip-hop music with the songs "Rapper's Delight" by Sugarhill Gang and "King Tim III" by the Fatback Band. Hip Hop was also influenced by the song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott Heron. Country music remained very popular in the U.S. Between 1977 and 1979, it became more mainstream, as Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson and Allman Brothers Band all scored hits which reached both country and pop charts.
Two of popular music's most successful artists died within eight weeks of each other in 1977: Elvis Presley (on August 16) and Bing Crosby (October 14). Presley — whose top 1970s hit was 1972's "Burning Love" — ranked among the top artists of the rock era, while Crosby was among the most successful pre-rock era artists.
Statistically, ABBA was the most successful musical act of the 1970s, topping approximately 370 million sales since 1972, followed by Led Zeppelin at approximately 300 million sales since 1968.

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