Rock encyclopedia 2. Rock music
In the short history of rock music, two stages are clearly traced: the period of rock and roll (1954-1962) and the period of rock (from 1962 to the present). Rock and roll (an expression found in many country blues and probably has a sexual connotation, as in the line "Rock me, spin me all night") gained popularity in the mid-1950s. Rock and roll is based on three interrelated sources. First, the music of the Negro rhythm and blues ensembles of the southwestern states of the United States is analogous to the softer and more sophisticated swing jazz bands of the eastern states. The name R&B literally describes the type of music these bands played: the melodies are based on 12-bar rural blues forms based on tonic, subdominant and dominant chords; the rhythms are sharply syncopated and heavily accentuated, with the most typical background beat being the emphasis on the second and fourth beats of a 4/4 beat. The vocalists of such groups had to shout to cover the loud sound of the ensemble; this style of "shout-out" blues subsequently became the mainstream of rock 'n' roll singers. Secondly, an important role in the formation of rock and roll was played by the church music of Negro vocal groups, who borrowed the singing manner and harmony from the tradition of the so-called. black gospel (religious anthem). The main feature of the gospel style is the “question - answer” formula: the soloist (and in the church - the preacher) recites a verse, and the choir answers it. Q&A is a staple of not only gospel music, but African folk music as well. Thirdly, the music of Elvis Presley, who, along with other performers like Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins and the Everly brothers, spontaneously combined elements of musical styles of white country and western, Negro rural blues and rhythm and blues. Hound dog (Hound dog), Don't be cruel (Don "t Be Cruel), (Heartbreak Hotel) and a number of other early works by Presley are blues or based on blues structures, and his vocal style combined the typical "nasal" in country music with the assertiveness and sensuality characteristic of Negro music.
It is thanks to Presley's irresistible appeal that rock and roll since song A hotel where hearts break(1956) has become a national phenomenon. However, other performers in the new manner gained popularity even before Presley. Since 1954, Bill Haley and the Comets have released a series of hits, which were rehash of the rhythm and blues repertoire of Negro ensembles. Chuck Berry's music grew out of the urban blues tradition - it was a rough, thundering descendant of the rural blues that thrived in Memphis, Chicago and Detroit after World War II. Sam Cooke and the Coasters, Drifters and Flamingoes continued the tradition of gospel, and this musical style, with minor changes, later transformed into what came to be called soul music.
Early rock 'n' roll was dominated by crisp rhythmic beat (beat), electric guitar, shrill tenor saxophone and hysterical-frenzied vocals. The theme of the songs revolved around the daily life of adolescents: school, parents, cars and especially youthful love. Indirectly, and often directly, this music challenged social norms. The new music had an extraordinary appeal to teenagers, and its novelty seemed even more attractive when compared with the popular music of the 1940s and early 1950s, marked by dull clichés in the spirit of the sentimental and artificial style of "Ting-Peng-Elli", which reflected completely a world alien to American youth. That is why young people have embraced rock and roll with such enthusiasm. The young rock and roll audience was impressed by the fact that adults did not understand this new music and clearly expressed their rejection. Nevertheless, despite the growing popularity of Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Chuck Berry and other famous artists, around 1959 rock and roll entered a period of decline. The fact is that the heads of the largest record companies, realizing the huge commercial potential of rock and roll and striving to expand the audience, brought to the stage pretty, but by and large mediocre performers. Gradually, aggressiveness, sensuality and, above all, the fiery rhythms of rock and roll faded, and they were replaced by "nice" fakes for rock and roll, like Teen Angel (Teen angel) and Tell Laura I love her (Tell laura i love her).
The Beatles' influence.
So, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, rock and roll seemed to be on its deathbed, but in 1962 it came back to life thanks to the rise of the Beatles, which gained phenomenal popularity. The quartet from the English city of Liverpool, followed by other British bands, and above all the Rolling Stones, breathed new life into the fundamental canons of rock and roll. The rapid success of these groups in the United States made us recall the energetic beat again - they made “rock”, as this style is now called, even louder and more aggressive. Initially, the Beatles drew inspiration from early examples of rock and roll, while the Rolling Stones owed more to urban bluesmen like Muddy Waters, whose song Rolling stone (Rolling stone) they borrowed their name.
Now you can see how secondary and boring the first Beatles recordings are. The Beatles' hypnotic impact on mass audiences was explained, firstly, by the energetic rhythm of their music in comparison with contemporary popular performers, and secondly, most importantly, by their personal charm. They were cute, impudent, long-haired, modest, albeit unusually dressed guys, and each "Beatle" had a very specific stage appearance. Against the background of the Rolling Stones - arrogant, rude and defiantly sexy guys - they seemed like "nice tomboy".
During the period of decline of rock and roll, for some time, white folk music, which was prevalent mainly in the Appalachian states (in the eastern United States), was revived and immediately put on stream. Musical stereotypes of the folk style belonged to another era and soon lost their appeal, but the lyrics of these songs, especially marked by the spirit of social engagement and naive poetry, turned out to be more durable. Bob Dylan began his career as a folk singer during this renaissance. The unsophisticated lyrics of Dylan's early protest songs like Only the wind knows (Blowin "in the Wind), Times - they change (The Times They Are A-Changin ") in his later work enriched the features of modern high poetry. He used such poetic techniques as free association, synesthesia (a combination of dissimilar sensations, for example, visual and auditory; for example, in Dylan's: "shadows in sounds"), a detailed metaphor and a deliberate ambiguity of meaning. Some rock poets have picked up on this trend, but their example really only became widespread after Dylan performed at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, accompanied by a rock band with power tools, replacing his usual acoustic guitar and harmonica. Rock purists saw Dylan's transformation as a betrayal, but many folk artists, including Tim Hardin, Tim Buckley, Lovin "Spoonful, have fully or partially adopted rock instruments, and many rock musicians were inspired by Dylan's demonstration of the richness of the song lyrics.
Among the latter were the Beatles. Although the early compositions contained some musical innovations, the lyrics of their songs mainly consisted of banal babble. I Wanna Hold Your Hand (I wanna hold your hand), Please me (Please please me), I want to be your boyfriend (I wanna be your man) Are typical examples. Still a landmark album Rubber shower (Rubber soul, 1965) was distinguished by both the semantic depth of the poems and the amazing variety of musical finds. George Harrison in song Norwegian furniture (Norwegian wood) plays the Indian sitar, and the string accompaniment in the ballad Michelle (Michelle) sounds in the spirit of classical music.
By this time, in the mid-1960s, when many musicians saw through the artistic possibilities of rock, hundreds of rock bands had sprung up. Their music became a logical continuation of early rock and roll, but it was also a reaction and response to current events in social and political life. For example, Country Joe and the Fish, a Berkeley-based band, condemned the Vietnam War and social inequality in American society in their songs. More original were Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead, both of which were closely associated with the emerging drug culture. They tried to recreate the sensory experience of LSD ingestion by combining long, floating guitar solos with shrill, howling rehearsals that were often distorted by different amp settings and feedback, with the heartbreaking itch generated by placing a power tool close to the amp. The lyrics also reflected an addiction to drugs. In composition Eight miles above the ground (Eight mile high) Byrds, surreal images in the spirit of Dylan only hint at the drug experience, but in the "acid rock" quite often there was a direct reference to drugs. In an effort to turn rock music into a total sensory and emotional experience, the musicians reached an unpleasant, and often unbearable for an unaccustomed ear, sound volume.
The Beatles continued to experiment. In 1967 they released an album called Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Orchestra (Sergeant Pepper "s Lonely Heart" s Club Band). Following the inspirational example of the Beach ensemble album Favorite sounds (Pet sounds, 1966), The Beatles did Sergeant Pepper the first rock album to be a single piece rather than a collection of individual songs. After the appearance Sergeant Pepper many rock artists followed the Beatles' lead. The songs have gone beyond the traditional three-minute format used by medium-wave radio stations, and now in the music albums, whole blocks have found an inner unity. Thus, the impressively complex and artistically (though not commercially) successful Jefferson Airplane album After bathing at Baxter's (After Bathing at Baxter "s) consists of four long "suites", each of which has several cross-cutting themes.
After other performers internalized an eclectic originality Sergeant Pepper Rock has been influenced by many related musical styles. Groups "Blood, Sweat and Tears", "Lighthouse", "Chicago" began to use wind instruments not only for acting out and purely rhythmic accompaniment, characteristic of soul or rhythm and blues music, but also for orchestral and solo numbers, marked by sophisticated harmonies and more flexible rhythmic patterns characteristic of modern jazz. Some bands, such as the disbanded Cream, put a lot of emphasis on sustained instrumental improvisation in the spirit of modern jazz performers, while retaining the typical rock rhythms and vocals. Frank Zappa, the leader of the short-lived ensemble "Mothers of Invention", a gifted composer and virtuoso of electronic music, borrowed musical means from the arsenal of the classics of the 20th century. - Edgar Varese, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen. Rock exploited other classical forms as well: two British bands, The Who and the Kinks, wrote and recorded rock operas - Tommy (Tommy) and Arthur (Arthur), in each of which the plot determines the musical structure, there are cross-cutting themes, and individual songs-arias are performed by different characters.
1970-1980s.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, blues, white folk music, and jazz — the cornerstones of rock — continued to inspire rock artists, and rock, in turn, influenced its musical forerunners. A number of symphony orchestra conductors, notably Zubin Mehta (Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra) and Leonard Bernstein (New York Philharmonic Orchestra), have participated in concerts attempting to synthesize rock and classical music.
As these experiments continued, rock in the early 1970s fell into disrepair again, as it did in the early 1960s. The Beatles broke up and the musicians began to work alone. Dylan has released a number of critically acclaimed albums. Other major performers - Jimmy Hendrix, who revolutionized the lead guitar role, rhythm and blues singer Janis Joplin and Doors frontman Jim Morrison - died tragically as soon as they began their creative careers. The rock audience was fragmented into fans of different directions, which multiplied in many. One of them was country rock - a style that adopted traditional instruments like the ukulele and returned again to the rhythm and blues of Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Buddy Holly.
At the same time, musicians emerged from the folk tradition of the early 1960s. Performers of calm songs and acoustic guitar - Carolee King, Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon - sang about personal relationships and old-fashioned romantic problems in a refined and graceful manner of lyrical confession.
In the UK, progressive rock emerged, represented by bands such as Pink Floyd, Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, who used classical arrangements to enrich the sound of their sophisticated compositions. Such emphatically melodic music with dense orchestration was largely based on the capabilities of the newly appeared electronic synthesizer, capable of imitating the sound of almost any instrument, including wind and strings.
The audience for heavy metal, a genre characterized by deafening loudness and repetitive melodic patterns, expanded. A number of members of this movement, including Led Zeppelin, AC / DC, Black Sabbath, became the most popular, albeit critically rejected, superstars of the decade.
Glam and glitter rock, represented by English artists such as David Bowie, Roxy Music and T. Rex ”and the American group“ New York Dolls ”, brought unbridled, transsexual theatricality. Bowie released a concept album in 1972 The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars), where the meteoric rise to fame and the collapse of the decadent-futuristic rock idol is traced. This piece was in stark contrast to the soft, pleasant demeanor of late 1960s rock artists. Bowie managed to push the boundaries of rock, who with his deliberately androgynous image challenged sexual and social norms.
By the mid-1970s, dozens of genres had merged in rock music. Alice Cooper and "Kiss", shamelessly borrowing elements of heavy metal and pop music, took the outer side of their stage image from glam rock, using the makeup and wardrobe of cartoon characters in their performances. Steely Dan, a band with roots in folk and soul, has come up with a strange hybrid - intellectual rock, which combines pleasant melodies with highly cynical lyrics. Hall & Oates created blue-eyed soul by borrowing the rhythm and blues sound of Philadelphia's soul music of the late 1960s. Art rock combined elements of glam and progressive rock. Bands like Genesis, led by Peter Gabriel, offered eccentric music enhanced by theatricality. Bruce Springsteen, singer and songwriter from New Jersey, reminded listeners of the young Bob Dylan with the power and appeal of stage performances and social orientation of the lyrics; Springsteen record Born to run (Born to run) was named the best album of the decade.
George Clinton and his Parliament-Funkadelic R&B band from Detroit are another kind of rock hybrid. The space theme of the compositions and the alien costumes of the ensemble members contributed to the popularization of funk rock.
In 1974, CBGB, a small music club on New York's South East Side, became the cradle of yet another rock genre. Local rock bands - the Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, singer Patti Smith - cultivated rough, bare, three-chord music that was later dubbed punk. Primitive, tough, often discordant, but full of passion and devoid of any of the musical sophistication that characterized 1970s rock, punk was the wildest form of rock music. The features of the future punk were guessed already in 1970 in the works of the Michigan group MC-5 and Iggy Pop (real name James Osterberg) and his group "Stooges". But only in 1975, when Patti Smith released her debut album Horses(Horses), punk entered orbit. Patti Smith's whiny shamanic vocals and indistinct, in the spirit of Arthur Rimbaud's lyrics, against the background of a minimalist dissonant melody, immediately found fans among the avant-garde rock.
English entrepreneur Malcolm McLaren, impressed by what he heard in New York, grabbed onto a new musical style. The Sex Pistols, recruited by McLaren from a motley crowd of young loafers, became the leader of punk rock. The political and economic atmosphere of Great Britain was ripe for such an openly aggressive apocalyptic genre, and punk flourished in the work of "angry" youth groups like the Pistols (their first album was called Anarchy in Great Britain) and "Clash". An equally wildly popular genre during this period was disco, a hybrid of funk, rhythm and blues and rock, celebrating the sexual freedom and enjoyment of life that defined 1970s pop culture.
As the popularity of punk rock grew, gradually changing, it turned into a "new wave". Elements of skiffle (a jazz-like kind of pop) and ska (Jamaican dance music) blended into light, fast-paced songs performed by ethnic bands like the Specials and English Beat. Elvis Costello popularized masterfully crafted hits with a feverish, ragged rhythm. Akron, Ohio's Devo band performed on stage in lightweight plastic jumpsuits and masks, hinting at their extraterrestrial identity. And bands like Husker Du, Dead Kennedys and Black Flag turned punk into a stream of uncontrollable aggression.
The video clip revolution.
On August 1, 1981, the first revolution in rock music since the Beatles took place: the era of Music Television (MTV) came - a round-the-clock broadcast of music videos in which rock songs were visibly embodied using special effects, fantastic images and montage frames synchronized with musical phrases. As a gold mine for inventive new wave performers like Police, Depeche Mode, B-52 and Go Gos, MTV has also instigated a growing number of one-day video engineering wonders.
If the punk movement of the late 1970s brought rock music back to its bare roots, the 1980s turned rock into a theatrical performance. Performers such as Madonna, Prince and especially Michael Jackson soared to fame only under the strict all-seeing video. Offering audiences their exquisitely crafted, ever-changing images and melodies, based on catchy, simple rhythms that did not divert attention from the central plot-emotional video theme, these performers reflected the philosophy of the 1980s "the more the better".
While music television has become a predominantly white middle class delight, hip-hop, or rap, has been fabricated in poor urban neighborhoods from improvised means. Disc jockeys, who used several "turntables" in the studio at once, played old records in parts, dismembered melodies and superimposed fragments on new rhythms. On top of this musical background, the "rapper" could slander impromptu rhythmic verses, the favorite themes of which were sex, drugs and African American culture. The early propagandists of rap - Afrika Bambaataa and Curtis Blow - took old rhythm and blues recordings by James Brown and other artists as the basis for their compositions. Then bands like Run DMC tried to attract the audience to rap, basing their songs on rock melodies - in particular on Go this way (Walk this way) of the group "Aerosmith". With the success of the Beastie Boys and other white rappers in the late 1980s, rap became the mainstream music genre, forcing its more socially active members to adopt a dark, aggressive style. Gangsta rap performed by the groups NWA, Geto Boys and Snoop Doggy Dogg offered poetry so aggressive, misogynistic and hooligan content that voices were heard in society, if not calling for censorship repression, then at least requiring self-control by the performers.
Few of the rock supergroups that emerged in the 1980s have proven viable. The exceptions were those ensembles that stood out for both musical talent and memorable image, such as REM, a quartet from Athens, Georgia, and Irish U2, a group whose songs in the spirit of religious hymns thrilled audiences.
New forms in the 1990s - 2000s.
Grunge, a genre that rose to star in the early 1990s, strongly resembled punk. He combined the avant-garde aspirations of bands like Sonic Youth with the frantic and rasping guitar of Neil Young, who began his journey in the mid-1960s with the early country rock band Buffalo Springfield. With bands such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam, grunge has spread its fame far beyond its American homeland.
Both in the 1970s and in the early 1990s, there was a fragmentation of styles. Many new performers were called "alternative" even in those frequent cases when their music was quickly absorbed by a mass audience. PJ Harvey and other girl groups provided the voice for the belligerent Ryot Girl Rock in a "heavy metal" style. Garth Brooks heralded the return of country rock traditions. In England, an explosion of rave music followed, marked by hypnotic tunes and an extremely fast pace. In the USA, an adherent of "industrial rock", the group "Ministry" has combined harsh-aggressive and dance music into one whole. Thanks to the growing influence of the MTV channel, such performers from Icelandic Bjork and the Japanese group Pizzicato Five have achieved international fame.
The music and aesthetics of grunge in the early 1990s largely determined the development of rock throughout the next decade. The key concept of this period was the concept of "alternative" (alternative). Initially, it meant opposing new uncompromising music to that endless and faceless stream of pop hard rock that dominated the music market in the eighties. Those who did not want to perceive the serial and soulless production of groups such as WASP or Poison had an alternative - garage and club teams that created their own, "unkempt" sound and sang not about Malibu beaches, beauties and limousines, but about what constitutes the life of most normal people: the complexity of human relationships, alienation, depression, dreams and hopes.
Seattle became the center of "alternative" music, where young bands gathered around a small firm "Sub Pop" developed the grunge direction: "Alice In Chains" (Alice In Chains), "Melvins" ( Screaming Trees, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam.
Grunge was a really fresh and timely direction. However, the popularity that this direction gained in one or two years led to the fact that the music industry began to exploit the so-called. "Alternative" sound. What until recently was considered marginal, non-commercial and constituted the repertoire of small independent record companies, in a matter of months turned into a gold mine of big show business.
Trying to deal with this situation in their own way, the main bands of the "Seattle Wave" release albums with a deliberately dirty, raw sound: "Nirvana" In the womb (In Utero) and "Pearl Jam" Life science (Vitalogy), and "Alice In Chains" turned to semi-acoustic sound, but these albums instantly became "platinum" (ie sold over a million copies). Since then, the concept of "alternative music", in general, loses its uniqueness, because much of what used to be a genuine alternative to big show business becomes part of this show business. However, the independent (indie), non-profit scene continues to exist, and bands like Sonic Youth, Melvins or Pavement are quite calm, without mass hysteria and multi-million dollar contracts are playing their music.
Since 1993, after the release of the album Siamese dreams, attention is drawn to the phenomenon of the group "Smashing Pumpkins", which became perhaps the most popular American group of the mid-1990s. Their work is an example of a rare combination of creativity and commercial success. Critics have called this post-grunge music, which sounds very formal, but at least reflects the harsh and heavy grunge foundation of Smashing Pumpkins' music.
Also since the mid-1990s. punk-core groups are gaining popularity, primarily Green Day and Offspring. They play very hard and fast music with effective melodies and ironic lyrics. Green Day released an album in 1994 Fool(Dookie) who made them millionaires. However, subsequent discs did not have such success. Offspring's career turned out to be much more successful: after a wonderful disc Smash (Smash, 1994) they find the strength to create another international bestseller Americana (Americana, 1998), and since then they have maintained a very high level of popularity.
With the release of the 1991 album BloodSugarSexMagic (BloodSugarSexMagic) Los Angeles band Red Hot Chili Peppers has become one of the most famous rock bands in the world. Their music is a mixture of funk, hard rock, hip-hop and many other styles. Releasing approximately one album every three years, the Red Hot Chili Peppers have not lost their "superstar" status for more than ten years.
The next international wave in rock music after grunge was the so-called Brit-pop. This means that the British have once again won over the leadership in rock music for a while. Parallels with the "British invasion" of the mid-60s are self-evident. In addition, the "boom" of Britpop was accompanied by a major campaign to revive mass interest in the Beatles, the publication of anthologies, the release of films, etc. Britpop also had a couple of the most popular and rival bands, modeled on the Beatles-Rolling Stones tandem: Oasis and Blur. In 1994, the Oasis albums were released. It can definitely be (Definitely Maybe) and the Blair group Park life (Parklife) and from this moment the era of Brit-pop begins. Many other Britons achieved world fame in this direction: "Pulp", "Radiohead", "Ride" and others. In English music of the late 1980s. there was a rather interesting direction, like the "Manchester Wave" with its cult performers: Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Charlatanes UK, which in many ways prepared the boom Brit-pop. And the first Blair album entitled Leisure (1991) appeared at the time of the triumph of this trend.
Although Britpop is now past the peak of popularity, many bands continue to thrive, releasing albums on a regular basis. However, if the Oases persist in their monotonous rock and roll line, Blair leader Damon Albarn is showing himself to be a more flexible and resourceful musician, participating in one of the most mysterious projects of the early 21st century. Gorillaz. Members of this group hide under fictitious names and cartoon characters. At concerts, they play behind a curtain onto which images of their cartoon counterparts and other images are projected.
In the 1990s. there is widespread experimentation in the mix of electronic and live guitar music, live instruments and digital technology, such as the albums of David Bowie (Davi Bowie) 1 outside (1 Outside, 1995), Earthling (Earthling, 1997) or any discs by Garbage, Republica, etc.
One of the most interesting experimental musicians is the American Beck Hansen, better known as just Beck. Each of his albums, starting from the first Ripe gold (Mellow Gold, 1993), this is a new round in the development of his unusual musical talent. Beck combines sophisticated electronics with the most traditional acoustic instruments.
Almost simultaneously with Britpop, another British-born trend called trip-hop has captured the world's attention. Massive Attack, Tricky, Portishead and later Morcheeba are some of the best known trip-hop artists. Created by thoughtful hip-hop DJs and experimental electronic engineers, trip-hop groups prefer slow hypnotic tempos, gloomy or melancholic sound, unusual samples (samples, samples - fragments of the sound of any composition or instrument used to create new compositions).
Significant influence on the music of the 1990s. influenced the culture of the previous decades. In the early 1990s. there was a fashion for the "hippie era" of the 1960s, and then the 1970s, mainly funk, disco and glam rock, came into vogue. This has seen the reunion of many legendary bands from past decades: Jefferson Airplane, Fleetwood Mac, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Eagles ) and others. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, members of "Led Zeppelin" (Led Zeppelin) release a joint album in 1994 No mercy (No Quater), where new joint songs and old hits of the group are presented in unusual oriental arrangements.
By 2001, fashion had made it to the 1980s: electro-pop, pink blazers and perhydrol. Even those who have been forgotten have surfaced, namely the instigators of 1980s glam: bands like Poison and Warrant.
End of the 1990s marked by renewed interest in "heavy" music. American bands such as Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, P.O.D. (P.O.D.), Linkin Park play music that has been called nu-metal for some time now. It clearly shows the influence of the previous generation groups: Rage Against The Machine, Helmet, « Nirvana » (Nirvana), Alice In Chains, Stone Temple Pilots. One of the key concepts in the music of the early 21st century. - multiculturalism. Interest in the folk music of Latin America, the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, Africa, the Far East and other regions of the world is growing into the usual exotic fashion. Elements of different cultures become material for creativity. A wonderful example of this approach is the Spanish-born Frenchman Manu Chao, who mixed Latin American, Caribbean, North African, European traditions in his music. Thus, eclecticism and stylistic diversity are characteristic features of the music of the early 21st century.
Having become one of the pillars of popular culture, rock music has taken its place in art as an independent field worthy of special study; indeed, many universities now include rock music courses in their curricula. In 1986, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was created. True to its historical roots, rock music remains a bone of contention: if opponents are shocked by the fact that connoisseurs have accepted "serious" music, then loyal supporters are embarrassed precisely by the acquisition of "legitimacy", because of which - as they claim - rock loses its inherent power and immediacy.
Before you are selected articles from the Rock-Encyclopedia, semi-mythical even in Siberia, mainly from its volumes "Brit-Rock" and "Prog-Rock".
In Moscow and St. Petersburg, this encyclopedia was simply called Siberian. Now we can proudly name its author. This is Nikolai Methodievich Slynko, who still wished to remain unknown.
Since the end of the sixties, at the Novosibirsk University, numerous attempts have been made to collect and systematize, with great difficulty, disparate information about modern music that reaches Siberia. With much greater success, Komsomol activists collected information about those who at NSU were fond of collecting records of ideologically hostile music. Any attempts to disseminate such music and information about it were suppressed in the most decisive way. Therefore, many, very many, who began to engage in such a business contrary to the authorities, were forced sooner or later to give up in front of the problems and difficulties piling up from nowhere and difficulties at work and in life. But not the legendary Nikolai Slynko.
And, despite all the obstacles created by the authorities, twenty years ago the first volumes of this laborious edition began to appear on thin samizdat paper. It is now impossible to indicate their exact number. Various articles about music and musicians have been wandering through different volumes for a long time, and until now this process does not see an end in sight.
In 1984, when Anatoly Korotin first brought typewritten copies of the Prog-Rock and Jazz-Rock volumes to Moscow, their total number was conditionally assumed to be 12, when The Beatles were placed in two volumes. The set separately included a special volume - surprisingly complete for that time, even by Western standards, a collection of compositions and discographies of various jazz and rock groups, created by Tatyana Voronova.
Computer typing had already begun for an underground printing house that printed Solzhenitsyn and other forbidden literature, but the arrests of couriers that followed soon forced them to curtail this work for many years.
But both on tissue paper and in photocopies, this encyclopedia was distributed among students. She not only carried the necessary information. She reliably covered the true essence and meaning of the activities of short-lived student music clubs. It was with great difficulty that the KGB sexists got out individual copies or even just leaflets with individual articles, read out to the holes, and after careful examination, the competent authorities did not find anything criminal in the information obtained.
Because the work of the music circles was carried out in two circles. The first one was publicly available. There, students themselves listened to music and gave lectures based on articles from this encyclopedia. In the second round, students specially selected from the first round of training were explained how to effectively hear and understand music, and the musicians who create it. These lectures will gradually be posted on our website.
And now, when many different Russian-language books and compacts with information about music and musicians have already been released, this titanic work is not only of historical interest. Although many articles have been partially revised and supplemented, this is a great opportunity to look at Music through the eyes of an eyewitness through two decades.
