Pop in practise – Motown 1960’s.

• Features of the genre.
• Lyrical content.
• Important artists and albums/singles.
• Artists that have influenced.
• Artists that have been influenced
• The image at the time.
• And the relationship between the genre and society at the time.



The features of this genre are very political. Motown played a huge role in the racial interrogation. The reason African American artist became successful and important was because of the record label ‘Motown’, which remarkably also became the genre name too. The owner who was also African American, Berry Gordy Jr. He founded this label in Detroit, America in 1960, April 14th. Motown, just like funk and soul, made the culture of African Americans to stand for their own beliefs, it was a very cultured genre.



The lyrical content of Motown wasn’t just about politics or culture it was also about growing up and the personal side to some of the artists lives, for example, Cloud nine by The Funk Brothers. In this song they speak of growing up and how hard it was, ‘The childhood part of my life
Wasn't very pretty, see I was born and raised
In the slums of the city’, these lyrics tell us he wasn’t brought up in a good environment and it was a possible struggle for him to get a break there. The political side of the lyrical content involving this genre was very much to do with the culture and the troubles in the world. Marvin Gaye song, ‘what’s going on’, was very representative of this. But not all lyrics were to do with politics and culture there was a fair share of love songs too. Love songs such as ‘my girl’ by Temptations, ‘I don't need no money, fortune or fame. I've got all the riches, baby, one man can claim.
Well, I guess you'll say, what can make me feel this way? My girl’, this was a very important love song of the time.




The funk brothers were a very important band when it comes to motown. The record label motown used the same session musicians for every studio recording because they were snappy and quick at learning fast paced and all other songs, also they always came out with the same motown sound. There were many great and important artists that made a statement in this music, artists such as, The Miracles, Marvin Gaye, Temptations, Supremes and Four Tops. The first motown release that made a huge impact on music was, ’Bad girls’ by The Miracles, in 1959.

Elvis Presley was a huge inspiration on this genre, the music and the dancing. I also think the artist Howlin’ Wolf was an influence on the genre of motown, as he was a very influential blues singer. The reason I think these two artists could have had an influence was because of the genres they were known for. Rock n roll and blues are a heavy influence on motown.

Since this genre and since new genres were introduced, such as, funk and soul, new artists were coming along with music that they had made by influence of motown. Marvin Gaye started making RnB records which is a genre that is greatly inspired from motown. Artists such as James Brown and Stevie Wonder were also artists that have been inspired by this music. Girl groups now have some inspiration from girl groups of motown, groups such as sugababes.

The image at the time, for motown, was very clean cut and tidy. Women wore smart dresses and small heels and men wore nice clean cut suits. There was a lot of sparkle also when i came to the image of the females. And artists such as Stevie Wonder wore sunglasses.

The relationship of the genre and society at the time was yet again about culture, standing up for your rights as an African American and that followed onto the genre funk too. I think that a lot of artists wanted to show people that they have come from having hardly anything to becoming known for their music. And I think that by singing and writing songs about this kind of stuff they wanted to send a positive message to all people.

Faine Dovaston.

50’s Rock n Roll.

Be-Bop-A-Lula - Gene Vincent & the Bluecaps 1956.

Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry 1958

Jailhouse Rock - Elvis Presley 1957

Rock Around The Clock - Bill Haley & His Comets 1956

Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On - Jerry Lee Lewis 1957

Good Golly Miss Molly - Little Richard 1958

Sweet Little Sixteen - Chuck Berry 1958

I Walk The Line - Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two 1956

That'll Be The Day - Buddy Holly & the Crickets 1956

Jambalaya (On The Bayou) - Hank Williams 1952

Hound Dog - Elvis Presley 1952

Soul on fire – Lavern Baker 1955




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_roll
http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/best_songs50s.html
http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/best_artists50s.html

http://42explore.com/rocnroll.htm
http://www.history-of-rock.com/indx.html
http://www.scaruffi.com/history/cpt11.html
http://pages.prodigy.net/cousinsteve/rock/feat4.htm
http://www.elvis.com/elvisology/bio/elvis_overview.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Holly



Faine Dovaston.

Pop in practise – 70’s Blog.

The genre I have chosen for this blog is the music of Funk and Soul. I will be talking about the following:
• Features of the genre.
• Lyrical content.
• Important artists and albums/singles.
• Artists that have influenced funk and soul.
• What artists have been influenced by Funk and Soul.
• The image at the time.
• And the relationship between the genre and society at the time.
One of the main features of funk and soul was ‘the one’, this is a beat firstly brought to use by James Brown and his band and when they were playing, he would command the band to play ‘the one’ beat by saying ‘On the one’. In doing this command the band would emphasis the first beat of every bar. One other important feature that came from this genre was that funk and soul had a very intense groove that was created by the strong bass lines and also riff’s too. When you talk about Funk and Soul you will always come across the subject of the riots in L.A which took place in the late 1960’s and in the long run inspired a lot of artists in writing many effective songs. This music is essentially known as being created by James brown and it’s known as the identity of African Americans.

The lyrical content in Funk and Soul wasn’t always about standing for your rights and being equal as a black person, it was also about having fun and basically just dancing, for example the song by Sly and the family stone ‘Dance to the music’ . But a huge percentage of the time it was about being equal in culture. When the L.A riots hit, a lot of the songs that came from this genre had the lyrical content of being accepted and being proud to be part of the African American community, with songs such as ‘Say it loud I’m black and I’m proud’ and ‘War (what is it good for)’. In fact some artists were so passionate about having peace in this world it made Marvin Gaye recording again and he wrote the song ‘What’s going on’ as a sign of his wanting the world to be a happy place.




Of course James Brown is an important name in the world of Funk; he created this new kind of soul music in 1965 with the classic hit ‘Papa’s got a brand new bag’. Another huge name in this genre is Stevie Wonder. In one recording session he made four successful albums. ‘Innversions’ is one of the many great albums by Stevie Wonder.


Funk came about in the late 1960’s by African Americans good talents to blend music such as, soul, jazz, R’n’B and turn it into a danceable sound. A lot of the inspiration came from soul music in the 1940’s. Major soul singers came to life in the 1960’s, such as, Ray Charles. Late examples of soul music are, The Staple Sisters, Al Green and Bobby Womack. I would say funk is a little like disco too as they both have a very dance like groovy feel to both genre’s.

Disco was a huge example of how influential funk is, that genre owes a lot to funk for inspiration. I think some of the artists that have been influenced since this genre came about are people such as, Chic who had the hit song ‘Le freak’ and KC and the sunshine band. And obviously funk went on to influence R’n’B tracks today.

I'd say the image of funk was just a very basic 1970’s fashion, usually big hair, flared trousers and platforms. It was full of bright colours and ‘funky’ images to go with the genre and it was often very big and bold, with either big or frilly collars. You would see the hair as being normally afro’s as they were mostly African Americans.



The relationship artists in this genre and just the genre itself created, I think, is a very political relationship. It taught people to stand up for their culture, to stand up for their rights and be equal to one another and its caused such a huge impact on the world today as the African Americans and black people all over the world are far more accepted than what they used to be, but that doesn’t mean there are not more discrimination towards them because there is still a lot of it going on in the world but if it weren’t for funk it would be a lot worse today if they didn’t inspire many people.



Faine Dovaston.

Pop in practise – 80’s blog.

The genre I have chosen to write about for my 80’s blog is the music of New romantics.
I will be talking about,
• Features of the music
• Lyrical content
• Significant artists
• Who artists were influenced by and who they have inspired since
• Important albums and singles
• The image this genre created
• And lastly the relationship that had come from the music and the public of that time.
The genre of New romantics was very flamboyant. And one of the main features of this genre was being noticed and partying. A well known club was ‘The blitz’. This club came to life in London, Coventry, in the early 1980’s. Steve strange ran this club and associated in this club with names like, Marilyn (Peter Robinson), boy George, Rusty Egan and Gary Kemp from the band Spandau ballet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPqi9JjSZPM&feature=related this video give you a small idea of the new romantics scene and what the blitz club was like in the eighties. As you may find, there are a lot of men with make-up on and dressing as women, this was all part of the new romantics scene and I will explain more of that in ‘The image this genre created’.

The lyrical content from New Romantics was a lot to do with love and heart break. I think the lyrics are very erratic and random but still a lot of lyrical content was to do with love, for example, ‘come undone’ by the band Duran Duran is about love in my opinion the lyrics ‘Can’t ever keep from falling apart at the seams, can’t I believe your taking my heart to pieces’ , which i think mean that’s he could possibly be falling in love but doesn’t want to http://www.lyrics007.com/Duran%20Duran%20Lyrics/Come%20Undone%20Lyrics.html, here are the lyrics for more of an insight of the lyrical content. Big artists in the New Romantics scene loved to express feeling through song writing, big artists such as David Bowie and Human league.

You can’t mention New Romantics without mentioning the significant names like, Adam and The Ants, Ultrvox, Spandau ballet, Roxy music and of course David Bowie who was obviously a big influence on the New romantics scene in the eighties. Other names that stand out when it comes to this genre are, Boy George and Steve Strange, which both played a big part in the club’s. Steve Strange is known well from the incident he had with Mick Jagger when he denied him from a club he was managing the door at, that story was so big for so long in the New Romantics clubs in the eighties.


I think the music and image David Bowie and Roxy music created in the late seventies had a huge impact on artists to come in the eighties. David Bowie especially had a big influence, everyone wanted to be just like him and everyone tried to take on the same images he had and a lot of artists created songs with the same kind of sound as some of his songs too. I also think David Bowie had inspired today’s biggest pop star, lady gaga an awful lot. There was a big question about the sex of both stars in their prime, so they both really made this image of being neither woman or man. And you can defiantly see a similarity in music as lady gaga has a similar sound to David Bowie. Plus they both have that same lightning bolt painted on their faces.



Some huge singles and albums of the time were, ‘The rise and fall of Ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars’ and ‘Aladdin Sane’ by David bowie, ‘More than this’ by Roxy music and singles from Steve Strange like, ‘Visage’ and ‘Fade to grey’.

The New romantics scene was a such an outgoing flamboyant image to portray. It was all about big bright hair and very bold make up. Everyone on this scene all tried to look different but just as unusual. A lot of questions were asked about every ones sexuality and what gender they were because of the image. Even today with the big influence those questions are still asked.


I think New Romantics was a social, political reaction to the sign of the time and reaction to the end of the punk era. I also believe it made many people’s lives a lot less boring. It gave off such a bold image it made people from the public of that time want to stand out and make a stand for the new romantics scene. The relationship between this genre and the public of the time was all about making a statement in my opinion.




Faine Dovaston.