True originals
Posted by Niks on 14 May 2008 - 2:41pm.
I'm putting together a mixtape of true originals, the first song of a genre.
Soul Makossa by Manu Dibango is regarded as the first ever disco tune.
New Rose by The Damned was the first punk single.
For Rock and Roll the two most common contenders are Good Rockin Tonight by Wynonie Harris and Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley.
For rap I think The Sugar Hill Gang's Rapper's Delight take the crown.
Care to argue, or suggest any more?
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Punk
I'm Stranded by The Saints was released a month before New Rose, I believe. And Blitzkrieg Bop would have beaten both by a few months. It may have been the first UK punk single though.
Rock 'n Roll? Surely Ike Turner's Rocket 88 was the first?
This one could run and run...
Bella Lugosi's Dead
by Bauhaus. Would that be the start of Goth as a genre? I expect someone to argue for the Monster Mash as an alternative.
What's the first techno record? Is it Herbie Hancock or would you go back to Kraftwerk?
Does anyone care when emo started?
I'm gonna love this thread.
Move over Kraftwerk
I don't know about techno but surely Delia Derbyshire has the claim on the first electronica music?
Herbie Hancock and Kraftwerk weren't techno
because they weren't CALLED techno at the time; and by the criteria of this thread that doesn't make them techno - otherwise you could claim, say, 'All Day And All Of The Night' as a punk tune. Model 500 (Juan Atkins) made the first techno records with 'No UFOs' and 'Techno City' .
Tell me when this one peters out.
I've been hurt in the Folk/Rock and Americana wars before, and I ain't fallin' fer it no more.
Not to underrate Bill Haley
But try playing Hank Williams' Move It On Over first. And yes, I think it's universally accepted that Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats, featuring Ike Turner were the first to the post with Rocket 88.
Did Ray Charles invent Rhythm and Blues (although the name was coined by Jerry Wexler, whilst a reporter at Billboard) with I Got A Woman?
Reggay
Toots and the Maytals 1968 single 'Do the reggay' is often cited as the first use (nearly) of the term 'reggae'.
I don't trust...
Any of it. It's all music to me, and the only thing that matters is when an artist I enjoy put out the first thing that truly sounded like their own voice shining through. It might be just me, but genre is just a coat-hook for the lazy. (No aspersions being cast, but my personal opinion is that the only originality that has EVER appeared in music is why someone finds a way to express some portion of their own individual nature in song.)
If a piece sounds like it could only be written by its composer and NO ONE else, that's original. Everything else is just hindsight and journalists looking for book deals.
I don't think anyone
who's been part of a subculture would agree. I know music fans and musicians who are very definitely not critics who consider it very very important indeed to define what is "punk", or "techno", or "folk", or "ragtime".
Music needs purists AND eclecticists, the individualist AND the generic.
"genre is just a coat-hook for the lazy"
I'm struggling to imagine how I'd explain Bob Marley to someone without using the word 'reggae'. Musicians may hate to be tied to a particular label, which is fair enough, but for most people it's their way in.
Granted...
...It's the blue-eyed idealist in me ranting in the dead of night. There... Must... Be... Another... Way! : )
There is, of course, the distinct possibility that I'm just a bit odd.
On the other hand, I think it is possible to describe Bob Marley - or anyone - without mentioning the genre, but, as you say, people are conditioned to think in genre terms.
As with everything I type, the opinions expressed by Kenton Hall are not necessarily those of anyone else, ever. : )
Genre bender
I agree with the above points, many groups or artists identify with certain genres because it creates a community and allows them to support each other. However some genres are technichally, styles. So ragtime, for instance, is based around certain musical rules, and then others are defined by the isntruments they play (try playing zydeco using a euphonium and a penny whistle), so the distinctions are technical.
Also, I want to know that I can walk straight past the dance and indie sections in HMV, straight to the dusty corner marked 'folk, world and blues' and find stuff I like.
First Electronic.....
A contender for the crown would be 'Switched on Bach' by Walter Carlos, released in '68 (Thank you wikipedia).
I bought this 'unheard' in about '72 around the time of ELP's 'Pictures at an Exhibition' and thought it would be similar.
Turned out to be Bach....just played on the Moog Synthesiser.
first Metal....
most critics would tip the hat towards Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf. I'd like to make a case for Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath - the true epiphinal moment.
Born To Be Wild
What, just because the lyrics contain the phrase "heavy metal"? It was recorded in June 1968, after nearly all of Cream's output and a fair bit of Hendrix's.
The Byrds
Sandy Pearlman first used the term heavy metal to describe The Byrds' Articial Energy. Can't see it myself.
I heard...
...it came from a review of a Hendrix gig in which someone described it as sounding like 'heavy metal falling from the sky'. A bloke in a pub told me so it must be true.
That
Is also what Chas Chandler claimed.
Tomorrow Never Knows
Not sure what genre I'd file this under but The Chemical Brothers and many others have based their career on it.
When I was about 14 or 15, me and my mates had
a serious and never concluded debate about what was "prog" and what wasn't.
So who gets to be chosen to represent a genre the boundaries of which even the experts (me and my mates, of course) could never agree upon?
The first prog
It wouldn't be right to pinpoint the first prog song since prog doesn't really 'do' songs, so surely the first prog album has to go to either the second disc of Ummagumma, In the Court of the Crimson King or Yes's self titled debut, all of which came out in the latter half of 1969 I believe.
As for a definition I'd suggest something containing any or all of the words: jazz, experimental, symphonic, avante garde, concept and cape-wearing keyboard wizard.
The Beatles
There is an argument for saying that The Beatles worked in a variety of styles resulting from their continual experimenting and bands that followed took up maybe one of these styles which then became a genre. I tend to think that's true.