Avant-pop
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Avant-pop is a genre of pop music which uses conventional pop idioms like harmonic melodies, verse-chorus-verse structures in addition of little elements of experimentalism and avant garde music. It's also less rock related than the more well known sister genres indie rock or indie pop.
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60s
The Beach Boys and The Beatles are the first pop music bands who began incorporating experimental instrumentation and sound recording techniques in their music on their albums Pet Sounds, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Also the psychedelic rock of Syd Barrett during his brief period in Pink Floyd with childlike songs like "Bike" and "See Emily Play" are early examples.
The use of dissonance and white noise on guitars was used to some extent in The Velvet Underground. Using street poetry coupled with dissonant guitar squalls, the music influenced several generations of musicians. The band, sporting Lou Reed (a staple of experimental music much into the next decade), and John Cale, became a popular influence on glam rock, punk rock, New Wave music, noise rock and, clearly, avant-pop. However, reverb had been used by famous rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix, also quite influential throughout the music world.
70s
Throughout the 70s, several tendencies of experimental music came to the fore. With the influence of The Velvet Underground, experimental bands developed. The releases of albums by Can, Neu!, Kraftwerk and Faust, associated with the genre of krautrock, heralded several advances in music, preceding several styles in pop. Furthermore, David Bowie and Brian Eno made the albums Low and Heroes, considered avant-pop.
Further developments were progressive rock's multiple bands, such as Pink Floyd and King Crimson, toying with rhythm and meter. This genre was extremely popular, with releases such as Dark Side of the Moon, In the Court of the Crimson King and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway as prime examples thereof.
However, with the developments of these genres, other movements progressed parallel to them, but also in direct opposition. Punk rock had birthed multiple bands, all promoting DIY ethic towards their music. Blondie, Talking Heads, Television developed a unique musical language made famous by their strict ethical sense. With the explosion of punk, and later post-punk, music became of a different nature. Post-punk, as a genre, was established as being far more experimental in nature, than punk. (See Joy Division, The Cure and Siouxsie Sioux)
80s
Several experimental bands followed in the famous style promoted by David Bowie's unique Berlin Trilogy using a synthesized style very much similar. Much like Kraftwerk, and most of krautrock, bands began to become popularized which were mostly synthetic of nature, using more and more programmed drums and synthesizers rather than traditionally used guitar, drum and bass guitars.
The groundbreaking album, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, released by Brian Eno and David Byrne, presaged the movement by using a new technology named the sampler. Soon, it would become the most important creation of the 80s in pop inasmuch as the avant-garde. Further experiments present came from Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel, the former releasing the critically praised Hounds of Love.
Inspired by the post-punk and the punk movement, new guitar sounds were being developed in the indie rock and alternative rock world. Bands began to receive much praise within underground circles, taught to one another through word of mouth. Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. and My Bloody Valentine are well known to have released famous, influential avant pop in this decade.
90s
Some noise bands in the 90s like Blonde Redhead, The Flaming Lips, Yo La Tengo, Pavement, Stereolab shifted from loud dissonant music to more pop oriented radio friendly avant-pop.
2000s
Bands still active in this musical category:Animal Collective, Enon, Deerhoof, The Notwist, Sufjan Stevens, Solex, TV on the Radio, Xiu Xiu, Liam Finn, The Luyas, The Dodos, Roger Powell, Micachu.
Artists in the Avant-pop genre
- Animal Collective
- Aspera
- Bablicon
- Blonde Redhead
- Buffalo Daughter
- The Chap
- Cornelius
- Danielson Famile
- Deerhoof
- Enon
- Lambchop
- Matthew Dear
- Mecca Normal
- Migala
- Mirah
- The Notwist
- NEU!
- The Olivia Tremor Control
- Ooberman
- Pavement
- Martin Rev
- The Silent League
- Solex
- Skeletons
- Sparks
- Sufjan Stevens
- The Sunshine Fix
- Mary Timony
- TV on the Radio
- Xiu Xiu
- Yoko Ono on her album It's Alright (I See Rainbows)
- Yo La Tengo
See also
- Art music
- Art punk
- Art rock
- Avantpop
- Avant garde music
- Avant-punk
- Experimental music
- Experimental pop music
- Nobrow
