Music

Rock
Rock & Roll is often used as a generic term, but its sound is rarely predictable. From the outset, when the early rockers merged country and blues, rock has been defined by its energy, rebellion and catchy hooks, but as the genre aged, it began to shed those very characteristics, placing equal emphasis on craftmanship and pushing the boundaries of the music. As a result, everything from Chuck Berry's pounding, three-chord rockers and the sweet harmonies of the Beatles to the soulful pleas of Otis Redding and the jarring, atonal white noise of Sonic Youth has been categorized as "rock." That's accurate — rock & roll had a specific sound and image for only a handful of years. For most of its life, rock has been fragmented, spinning off new styles and variations every few years, from Brill Building Pop and heavy metal to dance-pop and grunge. And that's only natural for a genre that began its life as a fusion of styles.

Country
Country music is about tradition, yet its simple form lends itself to endless variations on similar themes. Like blues — the two genres often shared themes, melodies and songs — country is a simple music at its core. Most of its songs are built around three chords and a plain melody, but these forms are so basic, they allow for many different styles, from the gritty sounds of honky tonk to the jazzy improvisations of Western Swing. Country music grew out of American Southern folk music, both Appalachian and blues, and old-time country was simple and folky, with just guitars and fiddles. As the genre progressed, old time music evolved into the rhythmic guitar-and-fiddle driven traditional country that became the foundation of modern country music, from honky tonk and Western Swing to the pop-oriented Countrypolitan and rock-inflected Bakersfield Sound.

Jazz
Jazz has been called America's classical music, and for good reason. Along with the blues, its forefather, it is one of the first truly indigenous musics to develop in America, yet its unpredictable, risky ventures into improvisation gave it critical cache with scholars that the blues lacked. At the outset, jazz was dance music, performed by swinging big bands. Soon, the dance elements faded into the background and improvisation became the key element of the music.

As the genre evolved, the music split into a number of different styles, from the speedy, hard-hitting rhythms of be-bop and the laid-back, mellow harmonies of cool jazz to the jittery, atonal forays of free jazz and the earthy grooves of soul jazz. What tied it all together was a foundation in the blues, a reliance on group interplay and unpredictable improvisation. Throughout the years, and in all the different styles, those are the qualities that defined jazz.

Blues
Blues is about tradition and personal expression. At its core, the blues has remained the same since its inception. Most blues feature simple, usually three-chord, progressions and have simple structures that are open to endless improvisations, both lyrical and musical. The blues grew out of African spirituals and worksongs. In the late 1800s, southern African-Americans passed the songs down orally, and they collided with American folk and country from the Appalachians. New hybrids appeared by each region, but all of the recorded blues from the early 1900s are distinguished by simple, rural acoustic guitars and pianos. After World War II, the blues began to fragment, with some musicians holding on to acoustic traditions and others taking it to jazzier territory. However, most bluesmen followed Muddy Waters' lead and played the blues on electric instruments. From that point on, the blues continued to develop in new directions — particularly on electric instruments — or it has been preserved as an acoustic tradition.

Folk
Each country has their own folk music, but the genre usually refers to American and British music that has been passed through the generations by oral tradition. It's simple, acoustic-based music that spins everyday events and common people into mythic status. Many traditional folksongs have no known author, they have simply evolved over the years. Most of the earliest recorded folk music was of this nature, but with Woody Guthrie, topical folk began making its way to record. Still, many artists, including the Weavers and Pete Seeger, chose to mix traditional songs with newer material, either written by the artists themselves or other contemporary musicians. Initially, Bob Dylan functioned in that style, but by his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, he began relying entirely on original material, thereby ushering the modern era of folk, where most performers sang their own (usually personally and introspective) material, and only occasionally throwing in covers.

Rap
To the untrained ear, all rap and hip-hop may sound the same, but there's a number of different levels in even the simplest rap song.

At its core, hip-hop is a post-modern musical genre that deconstructs familiar sounds and songs, rebuilding them as entirely new, unpredictable songs. Early rap records, commonly called "old school," were made by DJs scratching records and playing drum loops, with MCs rapping over the resulting rhythms. As the genre progressed, hard-rock guitars and hard-hitting beats were introduced by Run-D.M.C., the first hardcore rap group, and the scratching techniques were replaced by sampling. With their dense collages of samples, beats and white noise, Public Enemy took sampling to the extreme, and they helped introduce a social and political conscience to hip-hop. That faded in the '90s, as gangsta rap — originally introduced by NWA, who used Public Enemy's sound as a template — became the dominant form. By the '90s, gangsta rap, which originally was in direct opposition to such pop-oriented rappers as MC Hammer, had become smoothed over and stylish, and consequently was more popular than ever, as evidenced by the success of pop-gangsta Puff Daddy.

Reggae
Reggae is a music unique to Jamiaca, but it ironically has its roots in New Orleans R&B. Reggae's direct forefather is ska, an uptempo, rhythmic variation based on the New Orleans R&B Jamaican musicians heard broadcast from the US on their transistor radios. Relying on skittering guitar and syncopated rhythms, ska was their interpretation of R&B and it was quite popular in the early '60s. However, during one very hot summer, it was too hot to either play or dance to ska, so the beat was slowed down and reggae was born. Since then, reggae has proven to be as versatile as the blues, as it lends itself to a number of interpretations, from the melodic rock steady of Alton Ellis and the rock and folk-influenced songwriting of Bob Marley to the trippy, near-psychedelic soundscapes of dub artists like Lee "Scratch" Perry. It has crossed into the mainstream through the bright, bouncy "reggae sunsplash" festivals and pop-oriented bands like UB40, but more adventurous reggae artists, such as Marley and Perry, have influenced countless reggae, folk, rock and dance artists. Their contributions resonate throughout popular music.

New Age
Born from an aesthetic that aims to induce a sense of inner calm, new age music emerged from the meditational and holistic fields. Generally, these are harmonious and nonthreatening albums that are allied with new age philosophies encouraging spiritual transcendence and physical healing. Some of these albums are artistically satisfying as well as therapeutic.

Lesser musicians, however, often make ridiculous claims in the liner notes as to their ability to catapult listeners into advanced spiritual states through specially designed sonic vibrations and "immaculately conceived" musical ideas. Disco
While undanceable hard rock and introspective singer/songwriters seemed to reign during the first half of the 70s, the predominately gay Manhattan discotheque (French for "record library") scene increasingly gained prominence as the purveyors of the type of music eventually called disco, which set out to celebrate one thing: dancing. One of disco's signature qualities was its steady kick-drum-heavy beat. By the late 70s, the genre had become essentially a producer's medium, where the singer's personality was secondary to the groove. Gamble & Huff's glossy production style helped score a considerable number of hits for artist like the O'Jays, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, the Intruders, and the Three Degrees. Giogio Moroder's clinical synth-heavy approach launched Donna Summer's career. (Summer eventually went beyond disco into major pop success.) In 1977 disco reached its commercial zenith with the 24-million-selling soundtrack to the movie Saturday Night Fever, which featured the Bee Gees, Tramps, Tavares, KC & the Sunshine Band, Kool & the Gang, MFSB, and others. Other significant disco artists included Shalamar, George McCrae, Chic, Village People, Sister Sledge, Sylvester, and Barry White. Disco's dominance of the late-70s popular-music landscape was so pervasive that even the sound of such artists as Herbie Hancock and the Rolling Stones incorporated its thumping grooves.

Dance-Pop
At the top of the 1980s, disco had more than worn out its welcome with many people, so disco's rigid 4/4 groove was replaced by more elastic rhythms and varied synth and other instrumental arrangements. Like disco, much dance-pop is a producer's medium. In a sense, disco never died; it just changed clothes. Over the course of the 80s and 90s, this form of music has remained extremely popular.Examples: Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Prince, Madonna, Paula Abdul, and Whitney Houston. Techno-Pop/Dance
Techno's roots can be traced to the 70s synthesizer experiments of Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, and Brian Eno. David Bowie and Roxy Music aided in the cool, arty pop sensibilities that have informed this subgenre.Examples: Ultravox, Depeche Mode, Blue Nile, Human League, Yello, New Order, and Marc Almond.--.