APM Timeline

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    Stephen Collin Foster

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=geYxJhyJg38 He produced around 200 songs in the 1840s-1860s He used many different kinds of music in his songs including: ballads, minstrel songs, Italian light opera, and Irish and German songs.
  • Minstrel Show

    Minstrel Show
    Distinctly American, Minstrel Shows featured mostly white people using blackface to parody African American culture. Minstrel shows were very popular with white people, possibly due to their fascination with black culture.
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    John Philip Sousa

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EsgcwZuQf6E He was the most popular bandleader from the 1890s-WWI, known as the “March King”. His commercial concert band can be arguably considered America’s first pop supergroup.
  • Brass Bands

    Brass Bands
    By 1889 it was reported that there were over 10,000 brass bands in the US. Brass bands were inspired by and inspired the relationship between popular culture and patriotism.
  • Invention of the Microphone

    Invention of the Microphone
    The microphone allowed for electronic recording to begin. Without the microphone, we wouldn’t be able to have such crisp sounding amplified noise during concerts or on recordings.
  • Invention of Phonograph

    Invention of Phonograph
    Originally regarded as toys, phonographs eventually became a way for artists to record their music. The invention of the phonograph led to the use of jukeboxes in public places.
  • Ragtime music

    Ragtime music
    Ragtime music uses syncopation to intensify the beat and create rhythmic movements. The first official “rag” song was called “All the Coons Look Like Me” and was written by an African American man. It was very popular to white folks from the 1890s-WWI.
  • Ecstasy

    Ecstasy
    MDMA is commonly associated with dance parties, raves, and electronic dance music. Ecstasy makes people feel togetherness which is why so many people use it at raves and why people say it makes music sound better.
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    Frank Sinatra

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8tbP3f3i03E Frank Sinatra was one of the first big band singers to take advantage of the changing music business which led him to be one of the most popular singers of his times, with fangirls screaming for him. Sinatra combined Bing Crosby’s style of crooning with the bel canto technique of Italian opera and many other influences.
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    Nat “King” Cole

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hwacxSnc4tI Cole was by far the most successful black recording artist of the postwar era. He was also one of the first black artists to have their music regularly cross over to the predominantly white pop charts.
  • Soldier’s Joy- Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers

    Soldier’s Joy- Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers
    Believed to have originated in Scotland before the 1770s, it is one of the most popular and widely distributed fiddle tune in old-time collection. The band was the first successful “hillbilly” act signed on by Columbia Records.
  • Overdubbing

    Overdubbing
    Overdubbing allowed for musicians to re-record or add more layers of music to an original recording. Les Paul was the best innovator with overdubbing with some tracks having up to 8 guitar parts.
  • Electric Guitar

    Electric Guitar
    Electric guitars were invented in 1931 and were originally used by jazz guitarists who wanted to play single note guitar solos. During the 50s and 60s, it became the most important component in pop music.
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    Sam Cooke

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wEBlaMOmKV4 He began his career as a gospel singer and was scared that he would be ostracized if he sang songs not pertaining to his religion. Cooke’s career set the stage for expressions of politics in rock and soul music.
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    Patsy Cline

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6QEDb3xzdec Cline started her hit maker career after the song “Walkin’ After Midnight” which charted on both the pop and country charts. Her 2 biggest hits of 1961 showed her articulate and poised phrasing mixed with rural inflections to show where she’s from.
  • FM Radio

    FM Radio
    FM radio blew up postwar due to its better sound quality and its ability to not be as easily subjected to electrical disturbances. In 1939 the first commercial FM broadcast took place and by 1949 there were about 700 operating FM stations in the US.
  • Long John- Lightning Washington and fellow convict

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3O3vEOwFuOo The rhythmic percussion sounds, that sound like drums, are actually the convicts chopping oak logs. This performance was recorded at Darington State Prison Farm in Sandy Point, Texas.
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    Marvin Gaye

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3j3okb3kuts Gaye helped shape the Motown sound in the 60s. Post death he has been awarded with awards such as the Grammy Lifetime Achieve,ent Award and Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame.
  • Phil Spector

    Phil Spector
    At age 17, Spector already had a number 1 hit. By age 21, Spector had his own independent label. He is also now in prison.
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    Ray Charles

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0rEsVp5tiDQ Charles was constantly on the R&B charts but his crossover did come until 1959. He eventually established himself as a mass-market artist.
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    Paul Simon

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g9P-Zuq_yp0 Simon’s most popular album, Graceland, sold 14 million copies. He started in the band Simon & Garfunkel and wrote almost all of the pairing’s songs.
  • Diana Ross

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zbYcte4ZEgQ Ross was led to fame with her lead vocals in the band the Supremes. She is the most successful female artist with a career total 70 hit singles.
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    Bob Marley

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm7muPjevik He is credited with popularizing reggae music around the globe. He blended mostly reggae, ska, and rocksteady into his music pieces.
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    David Bowie

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v--IqqusnNQ Bowie is one of the world’s best selling music artists. He was a major leader in popular music for 5 decades and was critically acclaimed for his innovative music.
  • LP Disc

    LP Disc
    This new kind of disc allowed for up to 20 minutes of recordings on one disc rather than the original 3-4 minutes on the previous 78 r.p.m. disc. This invention allowed for the beginning of albums, since most pop musicians used them for a compilation of 3-4 minute songs.
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    Bob Dylan

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e7qQ6_RV4VQ He first established himself as an acoustic singer-songwriter in New York City. Dylan was booed off stage at a festival when he brought an electric band instead of his acoustic vibe.
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    Lionel Richie

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b_ILDFp5DGA He co-wrote the charity single "We Are the World" with Michael Jackson, which sold over 20 million copies. In 2016, Richie received the Johnny Mercer Award, which is the Songwriters Hall of Fame's highest honor.
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    Bruce Springsteen

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EPhWR4d3FJQ His recordings have included both rock albums and somber folk-oriented works. He has sold more than 140 million records worldwide and more than 64 million records in the United States.
  • Top 40 Charts

    Top 40 Charts
    It was developed in the early 1950s in Omaha, Nebraska by a disc jokey named Todd Storz. He came up with the idea based on how people tended to play certain songs more than others with jukeboxes and he applied it to the radio.
  • Stevie Wonder

    Stevie Wonder
    Wonder was very successful in his teenage years in the 60s with Motown. In 1971, Wonder negotiated a deal with Motown that allowed him creative control and led to many of his classics.
  • Reggae

    Reggae
    Toots and the Maytals single, Do the Reggay", was the first popular song to use the word reggae. Reggae incorporates elements of rhythm and blues, jazz, mento, calypso, African music, and some more genres.
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    Michael Jackson

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sOnqjkJTMaA Jackson’s popularity helped bring MTV to fame. The "King of Pop" was the best-selling music artist during the year of his death.
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    Prince

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l7vRSu_wsNc He had sold over 80 million albums over the course of his career. Statements he made suggested that his parents divorce led to some of his best material.
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    Madonna

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6p-lDYPR2P8 In a span of 10 years, Madonna had 28 top ten singles and 11 of them reached the number 1 spot. A reader’s poll in a 1987 Rolling Stone Magazine showed the public’s controversial feelings about her when she won 2nd place for best female singer and 1st for worst female singer.
  • Motown

    Motown
    Motown became one of the best African American success stories in the music business. The creative and financial control of it was all under black control.
  • Barbary Allen- Jean Ritchie

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9l3VePGR-QA The song was possibly in wide circulation in North America by the 1700s but it is impossible to know precisely when it was introduced. It has been preformed by others such as John Travolta, Dolly Parton, Doris Day, and Bob Dylan.
  • The Beatles

    The Beatles
    Many think the Beatles became popular in America due to the want for change following JFK’s assassination. Once the Beatles became popular, there was a flood of other British music invading the American market.
  • The Twist

    The Twist
    The Twist’s popularity brought rock and roll to many different people. The Twist reached number 1 on the Hot 100 2 times.
  • Counterculture

    Counterculture
    The separation of different genres into what is acceptable and not is a good example of the effect of counterculture in music. The Vietnam War and Civil Rights Movement played a large part on counterculture music.
  • Funk

    Funk
    Funk focuses on rhythm and groove rather than melody. It originated with James Brown’s signature downbeat groove.
  • The Beach Boys

    The Beach Boys
    The Beach Boys thrived even through the British Invasion. They were the bestselling American group of the 60s.
  • Uptown

    Uptown
    Uptown dealt with class inequalities and economic injustice back in the day when there weren’t very many songs about it. New York’s Spanish Harlem was a possible influence on the song.
  • Stagolee- Mississippi John Hurt

    Stagolee- Mississippi John Hurt
    There are tons of different versions of Stagolee’s story, including being set in gambling halls, riverboats, or even coal mines. Hurt’s initial recordings were commercial failures but then he was discovered in the early 1960s, just a few years before his death in 1966.
  • Boomboxes

    Boomboxes
    The boombox quickly became associated with urban society in the United States, particularly African American and Hispanic youth. The term “ghetto blaster” was used as part of a backlash against the boombox and hip hop culture.
  • Rapping

    Rapping
    The components of rap include content, flow, and delivery. The earliest precursor to the modern rap is the West African griot tradition, in which praise-singers would spread oral traditions and genealogies, or use their formidable rhetorical techniques for gossip or to praise or critique individuals.
  • Oldies Radio

    Oldies Radio
    Played hits of the 1950s and 1960s. The radio showed the nostalgic tendencies that the decade was characterized by.
  • Country Music

    Country Music
    Country music became a very big business in the 70s. It reinforced its popularity with the southern and white working class while simultaneously reaching out to young middle class listeners.
  • Rock Music

    Rock Music
    Rock was influenced from the 60’s Rock n Roll that Bob Dylan, The Beetles, and Jimi Hendrix put out. Pop rock and soft rock was created to be radio friendly.
  • New Technology

    New Technology
    A melotron imitated the sound of an orchestra in studio and at live performances. High-fidelity stereo sound could place a listener in the middle of the music.
  • Album Art

    Album Art
    Album Art conveyed a lot about a group appearance and aim of the music. It often had lyrics and different designs on it.
  • Disco

    Disco
    Disco emerged from American nightlife in the 70s. Disco’s first audience was club-goers from the African American, Italian American, Latino, gay, and psychedelic communities in Philadelphia and New York City.
  • Synthesizer

    Synthesizer
    Synthesizers were first used in pop music in the 1960s. They can imitate noises like piano, flute, or vocals.
  • Punk Rock

    Punk Rock
    Punk rock developed in America, the U.K., and Australia. Based of off 1960s garage rock and other forms of punk music, punk rock bands rejected perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock.
  • New Wave

    New Wave
    New wave music created pop music that incorporated disco, mod, and electronic music. Initially new wave was similar to punk rock, before becoming a whole new genre. It includes subgenres and fusions, including synth-pop.
  • Graffiti

    Graffiti
    Graffiti has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire. Graffiti may express underlying social and political messages and a whole genre of artistic expression is based upon spray paint graffiti styles.
  • Breakdancing

    Breakdancing
    Breakdancing mainly consists of toprock, downrock, power moves, and freezes. The dance style originated primarily among Puerto Rican and African-American youths, many of them former members of street gangs.
  • Kool Herc

    Kool Herc
    Kool Herc is credited with helping originate hip hop music in the early 1970s in The Bronx. He was known as the "Founder of Hip-Hop" and "Father of Hip-Hop"
  • Sugarhill Gang

    Sugarhill Gang
    "Rapper's Delight" was the first rap single to become a Top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1979. Sugarhill Gang and the record company, Sugarhill Records, are named after the Sugar Hill, Harlem, neighborhood.
  • DJing

    DJing
    The most common types of DJs include radio DJ, club DJ, and turntablist who uses record players, to manipulate sounds on phonograph records. DJs may create beats, using percussion breaks, basslines and other musical content sampled from pre-existing records.
  • Hair Metal

    Hair Metal
    This genre can be traced to musicians like Alice Cooper, Kiss, and Van Halen. It arose in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is a subgenre of heavy metal, which includes pop-influenced hooks and guitar riffs, and borrows from the fashion of 1970s glam rock.
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    Aerosmith

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JkK8g6FMEXE The band are sometimes referred to as "the Bad Boys from Boston" and "America's Greatest Rock and Roll Band". Their first five albums have attained multi-platinum status.
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    Snoop Dogg

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2soGJXQAQec He has sold 23 million albums in the US and 35 million around the world. His debut album sold almost a million copies within a week of its release.
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    Tupac

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=nkJA6SYwa94 He was one of the best-selling artists in the world, selling more than 75 million records worldwide. Most of the things he said in his songs revolved around social issues like racism and the violence and hardship of inner cities.
  • Drum Machines

    Drum Machines
    It has influenced genres including hip hop, techno, and house music. It was first adopted by rock and pop artists including Fleetwood Mac, Prince, and Stevie Wonder.
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    Biggie Smalls

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wk4ftn4PArg He is ranked by Billboard as among the ten greatest rappers of all time. With the release of his debut album he helped East Coast rap become more popular despite West Coast rap being more dominant at the time.
  • Coo Coo- Dink Roberts

    Coo Coo- Dink Roberts
    Roberts (1894-1984) was 80 years old when his recorded version of the song came out. The song uses syncopation, call and response, and improvisation. It also stresses the relationship between the singer and the audience.
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    The Ramones

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UMF8-hKrH8Y None of them were related but they all adopted the surname “Ramone”. They are often said to be the first band that defined the punk rock sound.
  • Saturday Night Fever

    Saturday Night Fever
    The commercial success of this film helped popularize disco music. In 2010, it was deemed historically and culturally accurate enough by the Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Film Registry.
  • Music Pirating

    Music Pirating
    Beethoven dealt with pirated copies of his music, which reduced the income he could make from publishing. In the 20th and 21st century there has been much debate over what is considered piracy and the ethics of it all.
  • MTV

    MTV
    MTV's main target demographic was young adults in the beginning but now it is primarily geared towards teenagers. MTV launched with the words "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll," which played over footage of the first Space Shuttle launch countdown of Columbia.
  • Thriller Album

    Thriller Album
    The album was the number 1 album for 37 weeks in 1983. It has sold over 40 million copies, making it the top most selling album ever.
  • Gangsta Rap

    Gangsta Rap
    This type of rap is characterized by themes and lyrics that generally emphasize the "gangsta" lifestyle. After the early 90s, gangsta rap became the most commercially lucrative subgenre of hip hop.
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    Nirvana

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vabnZ9-ex7o The band is considered one of the most influential and important alt rock band despite only releasing 3 albums. In the media, Kurt Cobain, the lead singer, found himself being referred to as the spokesman of the generation.
  • Emo music

    Emo music
    In the early 1990s, emo was adopted and reinvented by bands such as Weezer and Jimmy Eat World. Bands such as My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy continued the genre's popularity during the 2000s
  • Grunge music

    Grunge music
    Grunge was commercially successful in the early–mid 1990s, due to releases like Nirvana's Nevermind album. Grunge lyrics brought socially conscious issues into pop culture and added introspection into music.
  • Indie music

    Indie music
    Indie music is a process that may include an autonomous, do-it-yourself approach to recording and publishing since it is independent from a record label. The term indie is sometimes used to describe a genre which may include music that is not independently produced and many indie artists do not fall into a defined music style.
  • Raves

    Raves
    Raves include performances by DJs, who select and mix a seamless flow of loud electronic dance songs. Law enforcement raids and anti-rave laws have been used against the rave scene in many countries. This is due to the association of illegal club drugs such as MDMA.
  • EDM

    EDM
    Following the emergence of raving and club culture, EDM achieved mainstream popularity in Europe. The term "electronic dance music" was being pushed by the United States music industry and music press in an effort to rebrand American rave culture.
  • Enigue Nigue- Grupo Afrocuba

    Enigue Nigue- Grupo Afrocuba
    This song has 3 sections called El Diana (the intro), El Canto (the song), and El Montuna (the finale). The montuna makes up a little over half of this 6 minute song.