MTF Week 10

In this weeks forum we listened to the rise and roots of Grunge, Indie and Punk music. Steve started the lecture by playing the classic Dick Dale song “Misirlou” which he considers to be early Grunge as the sound is very raw with a quite dirty mid-fi (classic grunge) quality. The kings of Seattle based Grunge, Nirvana were the next band up and we started by listening to early singles before they were cleaned and polished in their later LA recording days heard on their multi platinum album “Nevermind”.

Define Grunge: Sonic dirt, crud, roughness. Muffled grittiness.

The aim of Grunge, Indie and Punk music in most cases is to portray the band image and their views on life and in some punk their apathy towards the rest of the world through their rebellious form of music. Some of the other grunge bands noted In this lecture were Mudhoney who were quite abrasive and out of tune, the very raw sounding Shellac Prayer To God and the early days of Soundgarden.

Define Indie: Indie is hard to define as it covers a broad range of music style. Generally Indie music referred to alternative music and groups could get on with making truly original music and not pop music aimed for chart success.

One Indie group with their minds definitely set for chart success would have to be “The White Stripes”. The White Stripes have become known all around the world for their simple catchy MID-FI beats earning them millions of dollars and no.1 chart hits.

Define Punk: Punk is a set of social and political beliefs, morals and standards that indicate an absolute rejection of conformity.

We then went back to the 70s punk and listened to the 2 bands that created the entire English punk scene “The Sex Pistols” and “The Ramones” their sound is extremely raw with a large amount of LO-FI tone at the best of time really showing the listener that they don’t care at all to what it sounds like.

In the last half an hour Steve played us some English based music and we listened to the Sibilant vocals of Elizabeth Fraser on the Massive Attack song “Teardrops”, Portishead, The Stone Roses and The Beatles.

References:

Fieldhouse, Steve. 17th of May 2007. “Genre Based Production”

Definitions From:
www.britishcouncil.org/ukinfocus-music-glossary.htm stereophile.com/reference/50/index4.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk
Accessed the 20th of May 2007.