Sly & The Family Stone perform on the TV show The Midnight Special, 1971.

Listening Cue

“Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” (1970)

Sylvester Stewart

Sly and the Family Stone.

STYLE Proto-funk ⋅ FORM Open, with chorus

Listen For …

INSTRUMENTATION

Vocals (group singing most of the time), electric bass, electric guitar, drums, keyboards, and horns (trumpet and saxophone)

RHYTHM

Moderate tempo; rock rhythm with sharp backbeat; many layers of rhythmic activity, including several double-time (based on rhythm twice as fast as rock beat) rhythmic figures. Almost everything is syncopated.

MELODY

Repetitive melodies made up of short riffs in both the verse and the chorus

HARMONY

One chord throughout the entire song

TEXTURE

Dense, layered texture, made up of riffs in rhythm instruments and horns underneath the vocal. Texture remains much the same throughout the song.

Remember …

DARK LYRICS, UPBEAT MUSIC

Words and music = conflicting messages? Party-time groove versus sobering portraits of ghetto life.

EMPHASIS ON THE GROOVE

Focus on rhythm and texture; harmony = one chord; melody = repeated riffs

NEW BASS SOUNDS

New, more percussive style: string plucked, slapped, or thumped

BRIDGE FROM JAMES BROWN TO FUNK

Common threads include the great groove, static harmony, and percussive sounds

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The formation of Funkadelic signaled Clinton’s transformation into Dr. Funkenstein (he also referred to himself as Maggot Overlord). The title of his 1970 album Free Your Mind … And Your Ass Will Follow shows another side of his funky sense of humor.

Although Clinton certainly enjoyed being provocative and playing with words, there is in many of his songs a sense that he too is laughing to keep from crying. He tucks his darker messages inside humorous packages set to a good-time groove. When he tells listeners to “Tear the roof off the sucker,” he could be urging them to party hard—or to riot.

Without question there’s an escapist aspect to his work: Clinton’s many aliases, the flamboyant costumes he and his bands wore in performance, and the sci-fi world he created (the “Mothership Connection”) evidence that. Clinton seems to invite listeners to become “one nation under a groove”; surrendering to the rhythm offers momentary relief from the pain of daily life as a black person in the United States. We experience this in his 1976 hit “Tear the Roof Off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk),” which his band Parliament recorded.

Listening Cue

“Tear the Roof Off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk)” (1976)

George Clinton,

Bootsy Collins, and

Jerome Brailey

Parliament.

STYLE Funk ⋅ FORM Open

Listen For …

INSTRUMENTATION

Voices, electric bass, drums, conga drum, electric guitars, synthesizers, and horns

RHYTHM

Moderate tempo; basic beat is a rock rhythm, but many parts move twice as fast as rock (the opening “rap,” the bass patterns, and the conga part). Lots of syncopation in the instrumental background.

MELODY

Melody derived from blues-inflected modal scale. First melody: long, unbroken descending line. Second melody: short riffs. Third melody: long sustained phrase. All three melodies are simply repeated several times; there is no development.

HARMONY

No harmonic change: decorative harmonies (in voices and synthesizer) derived from modal scale

TEXTURE

Dense texture, with voices, percussion, bass, sustained chords on horns and synthesizers, and high synthesizer lines and chords. Strong contrast from section to section (“Give up the funk” = voices, bass doubling the melody, and percussion).

Remember …

RHYTHM OVER MELODY

The rhythm, which features complex interactions among the various instruments, is more interesting than the melody, which doesn’t develop at all

THE BASS AND BLACK MUSIC

Completely liberated bass: little timekeeping; instead, intricate patterns and riffs, occasional doubling of melody

IN THE GROOVE/IN THE MOMENT

The only focus is to give up the funk. No story, no musical journey toward a goal.

ROAD TO RAP

The emphasis on rhythm and the chantlike melodies are a prelude to rap and techno

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Like Brown and Stone, Clinton creates the groove over static harmony: this is a one-chord song. The texture is dense: there are riffs and sustained chords from both horns and keyboards, high obbligato lines from a synthesizer, an active but open bass line, lots of percussion, and voices—both the choral effect of the backup singers and Clinton’s proto-rap. Clinton gives Bootsy Collins a chance to stretch out. Collins’s lines are active, syncopated, and melodic, calling attention to the increasingly prominent role of the bass in this branch of black music.

The rhythm has a sixteen-beat feel over the eight-beat rhythm laid down in the drum part. Clinton’s rap-like introduction moves at this faster rhythm, and so do the horn riffs, the bass line, and the guitar parts. This is a denser version of Stone’s proto-funk style. It is a darker sound as well, mainly because of Clinton’s voice and the prominence of the bass.

Clinton’s various bands ran into trouble in the late seventies, primarily because of bad money management, sloppy business practices, and drug abuse. By 1981, Clinton had consolidated the two versions of the band under one name, the P-Funk All Stars.

In its purest form, funk never crossed over to the pop mainstream. “Tear the Roof Off the Sucker,” which was Parliament’s highest-charting song, only reached No. 15. It was more successful commercially in pop/funk fusions, such as those by Earth, Wind & Fire.

59-3
Earth, Wind & Fire and a Black Music Synthesis

From the time Jerry Wexler coined the term, “rhythm and blues” has also embraced not only rhythmic and bluesy music but also black pop, which emphasizes melody and harmony over strong rhythm and deep blues feeling. During the 1950s and 1960s, black pop and rhythmic and bluesy R&B inhabited largely discrete worlds: doo-wop and Motown versus big beat music, electric blues and soul. James Brown didn’t sing black pop; Diana Ross didn’t sing soul.

Few artists have successfully fused these two streams. Among the few are two truly great performers: Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. Both brought soul into pop, and vice versa. In the early seventies, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder moved easily between funk and romantic pop. In the latter part of the decade, Earth, Wind & Fire joined them.

Maurice White (1941-2016), the founder and leader of Earth, Wind & Fire, named the group after his astrological sign. He was a Sagittarian: the sign contains three of the four elements—earth, wind, and fire—but not water.

After a successful career as a session drummer at Chess Records and with jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis, White set out in 1969 to create a new kind of group. By 1971, they were Earth, Wind & Fire. The next year, they moved to Columbia (now Sony) Records and continued to climb up the charts. By 1975, they had become one of the elite groups of the decade, both on record and in live performance, and remained a top act through the end of the decade.

Earth, Wind & Fire was a big group. In this respect, they were in step with other black acts, such as George Clinton’s funk bands, Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra, and the various Philadelphia groups. As many as fourteen musicians could be on stage. The nucleus of the band was White, who sang and played a kalimba, an African thumb piano; his brother Verdine (b. 1951) on bass; and singer Philip Bailey (b. 1951). In words and music, the group projected a positive attitude, as we hear in their first No. 1 single, the Grammy-winning 1975 hit “Shining Star.”

In “Shining Star,” Earth, Wind & Fire juxtapose funk and more melodious music within a single song: the verse sets up a complex funk-style groove over a single chord, while the refrain underpins a more coherent, riff-based melodic line with rapidly changing harmonies. Rich harmony helps project the optimistic, hopeful mood of the title and refrain: “Shining star for you to see, what your life can truly be.”

Earth, Wind & Fire’s ability to meld funk-like grooves with more melodious material is one key to their crossover success. This versatility is evident in the range of their hit songs, from soulful ballads like “That’s the Way of the World” to funkish grooves like “Serpentine Fire.” Few seventies acts were at home in both funk and black pop styles; fewer still succeeded in blending the two. Earth, Wind & Fire was one of them.

The influence of funk was far more extensive than its market share. Its more active and complex rhythms bled into much of the new music of the latter part of the 1970s and early 1980s. It’s apparent in much pop-oriented black music, and even more in disco. Much disco employed a more obvious form of funk rhythms. However, it was rap that was most directly influenced by funk; indeed, with the advent of digital technology, rappers sampled Clinton’s music mercilessly.

“Shining Star” (1975)

Maurice White,

Larry Dunn,

Philip Bailey

Earth, Wind & Fire.

STYLE: Funk/black pop fusion ⋅ FORM: Verse/chorus

Listen For …

INSTRUMENTATION

Lead and backup vocals, trumpets, saxophones, keyboards, electric guitars, bass, drums, additional percussion

RHYTHM

Extensive syncopation over active sixteen-beat rhythm, mainly in guitar and drums

MELODY

Both verse and chorus built mainly from repeated riffs

HARMONY

One chord in the verse, quickly changing percussion in chorus

TEXTURE

Dense, with numerous active syncopated lines

Remember …

INSPIRATIONAL MESSAGE

Both words and music emphasize the power of positive thinking

FUNK/POP MIX

The verse of this song is Earth, Wind & Fire’s take on funk. By contrast, the chorus is more melodic and has active harmony, although it retains the groove.

SIXTEEN-BEAT RHYTHM

It is marked in the guitar and conga drum. Other rhythms map onto this faster rhythm; most are syncopated.

STACKS OF RIFFS

Numerous riffs in the horns and rhythm instruments help create a dense texture

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CH. 60 Reggae

In “The Harder They Come,” we are again faced with the seeming contradiction between words and music. The lyrics are dark, even menacing, but the music nevertheless brings a smile to one’s face and a body movement somewhere. This is happy music, in its rhythm, in the lilt in Cliff’s voice, in the form (a carbon copy of Motown’s verse/bridge/chorus formula), and in the gently undulating melody. We are left to ponder: is the music the candy that entices us to listen to the message of the lyrics, or a way to forget for the moment the situation that the lyrics depict? What we do know is that many of the songs that put reggae on the international musical map embedded hard messages within the music’s infectious rhythms and sounds.

Like the music of Sly and the Family Stone and George Clinton, reggae contrasted hard lyrics with happy music. However, reggae was different in that it first became known outside of Jamaica as music with a message. The music of Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh, and other early reggae stars called attention to the social inequities in Jamaica. Moreover, it came at a time when rock had largely forsaken its role as a vehicle for social commentary. Marley would help fill that void, becoming a powerful voice on social issues.

60-6
Bob Marley and 1970s Reggae

Bob Marley (1945–1981) began his recording career in the early 1960s; it took off in 1964, after he formed the first edition of his backup group, the Wailers. By the early 1970s, he was extremely popular in Jamaica. A recording contract with Island records propelled him to global stardom.

His success on record and in concert gave him and his country’s music unprecedented exposure. For many outside of Jamaica, Bob Marley was reggae. Worldwide, he was its most popular artist. His popularity gave him the leverage to work for meaningful change in Jamaican society. He became the decade’s most visible spokesperson for peace and brotherhood, carrying the torch of sixties social activism and idealism into the seventies. Much of Marley’s music was political: Songs like “I Shot the Sheriff ” and “Get Up, Stand Up” are familiar examples.

Bob Marley, 1978

Listening Cue

“Is This Love” (1978)

Bob Marley

STYLE Reggae ⋅ FORM Verse/two-part chorus (first part contains title phrase)

Listen For …

INSTRUMENTATION

Lead, backup vocals, several percussion instruments, including Rastafarian drums, bass, guitars, horns (at end) and keyboards

RHYTHM

Shuffle-based reggae rhythm at moderately slow tempo: light beatkeeping and ka-chun-ka pattern formed by offbeat/backbeat keyboard chords

Slow-moving vocal line, free bass line over characteristic reggae rhythm

MELODY

Memorable extended instrumental riffs recur throughout; vocal line has widely spaced repeated riff in verse; flowing

TEXTURE

Rich texture, concentrated in mid-range (bass moves freely)

Remember …

LOVE SONG

Song about love, not politics, sung at a leisurely tempo

REGGAE RHYTHM

Rich rhythmic texture with light percussive beat keeping, flowing melody, distinctive backbeat/afterbeat ka-chun-ka rhythm in keyboards, free bass line

BUOYANT SOUND

Activity concentrated in mid-range, with keyboard and percussion providing steady but not beat-heavy rhythm, serves as musical cushion for vocal line

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The gentle pulsations of the drum and tambourine, prompted by the fast shuffle afterbeat rhythm in the organ (rather than the even, rock-like afterbeats in “The Harder They Come”), keep the rhythm afloat, while the vocal parts—Marley’s slow-moving melody and the sustained harmonies of the “I-Threes”—and in-and-out bass slow the beat down to a speed below typical body rhythms—even the heartbeat at rest or the pace of a relaxed stroll. As a result, the rhythm of the song is buoyant and lazy at the same time. All of this evokes a feeling of languid lovemaking in the tropics, a perfect musical counterpoint to the lyric of the song.

60-7
Reggae as an International Music

Reggae’s popularity outside of Jamaica owed much to the heavy concentrations of Jamaicans in England. As part of the transition from colonialism, Great Britain opened its doors—or at least its ports—to people from its colonies. More arrived from the Caribbean than from any other former colony—around 250,000 in the late fifties and early sixties. By the end of the sixties, the British government had put into effect legislation that severely restricted immigration. By that time, however, those Jamaicans already in England re-created much of their culture. All the Jamaican music of the sixties and the seventies found a supportive audience in England, among Jamaicans eager for this link to their homeland and among British whites intrigued by this quite different music.

For a new generation of British musicians in search of “real” music, reggae (and ska) provided an at-home alternative to the blues. Eric Clapton, who had immersed himself so deeply in the blues during the sixties, led the way with his cover of Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff”; the recording topped the charts in 1974. A wave of new British acts, among them the Clash, Elvis Costello, UB40, and the Police, wove the fresh sounds of reggae into their music.

Reggae’s path to America seems unnecessarily roundabout. The music didn’t find an audience in the United States until after it had become popular in England. Once known, however, its influence was even more diverse—and more divorced from the music’s social context. For example, we hear echoes of the distinctive reggae rhythm in the Eagles’ huge 1977 hit “Hotel California.”

Jamaican music influenced African-American music in two markedly different ways. Black pop musicians used the rhythmic texture of reggae to further liberate the bass from a timekeeping role, beyond the advances of Motown and the Philadelphia sound. Because reggae embedded the pulse of a song in its distinctive mid-range rhythms, bass players were free to roam at will, largely independent of a specific rhythmic or harmonic role. Its influence was evident in such songs as “Sexual Healing,” Marvin Gaye’s 1982 ode to carnal love, and “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” Tina Turner’s 1984 cynical rejection of it.

As the song title suggests, “I Feel Love,” her next big American hit, also explores the erotic dimension of love, although not as blatantly as the earlier song. Here Summer’s deliberately wispy voice floats above Moroder’s sea of synthesized sound. Summer’s vocal may be the most prominent element of the music, but the background is certainly the more innovative. The innovation begins with Moroder’s use of electronic counterparts to a traditional drum set; there isn’t one conventional instrument on the track. Even more noteworthy is the idiomatic writing for synthesizers. Moroder creates a rich tapestry of sound by layering in a large quantity of repetitive patterns, some constantly in the foreground, others in the background and often intermittent. None of them really corresponds to traditional rock guitar or bass lines. It is not only the sounds that are novel, but also the lines that create the dense texture behind Summer’s vocal.

Rhythmically, the song converts the sixteen-beat rhythms of funk and black pop into an accessible dance music by making the beat and the sixteen-beat layer more explicit. From the start, we hear the steady thud of a bass drum–like sound on every beat and an equally steady synthesized percussion sound moving four times the speed of the beat in a mid-range register. Other parts, most obviously the synthesized ascending pattern that runs through the song, also confirm regular rhythms. Compared to previous examples that used this more active rhythm, “I Feel Love” is far less syncopated and much more obvious in its timekeeping. This is certainly due in large part to its use as dance music. The busy rhythms of the accompaniment contrast sharply with Summer’s leisurely unfolding vocal line and the slow rate of harmonic change. These two seemingly conflicting messages about time in fact invoke two aspects of the disco scene: the activity of the dancers to the throbbing beat and the endlessness of the experience, as one song mixes into the next. (The abrupt ending of the song suggests its use in a disco: The DJ would fade it away before the end as he brought up the next song.)

Summer’s career started before disco went mainstream, then crested during the late seventies. Perhaps anticipating the imminent commercial decline of disco, she took her music in new directions in songs like “Bad Girls.” This helped sustain her popularity through the end of the seventies; her last three albums of the decade went No. 1.

Among the most loyal members of Summer’s fan base were gays. Their connection to disco took on a public face in the music of the Village People.

Listening Cue

“I Feel Love” (1977)

Donna Summer,

Giorgio Moroder, and

Peter Bellotte

Donna Summer, vocal.

STYLE Disco ⋅ FORM Two statements of verse/chorus form

Listen For …

INSTRUMENTATION

Voice and array of synthesized sounds: bass, percussion, chords, and so on

PERFORMANCE STYLE

Summer’s wispy voice vs. bright electronic sounds

RHYTHM

Regular timekeeping at three speeds: beat, 2× beat, and 4× beat; other rhythms unfold slowly

MELODY

Repeated riff in accompaniment; slow, narrow-ranged vocal line

TEXTURE

Rich texture made up of electronic sounds envelops Summer’s vocal

Remember …

ELECTRONIC SOUND WORLD

No conventional instruments; electronic substitutes for percussion, bass, and chord instruments

OBVIOUS RHYTHM

Beat marking in electronic bass drum, low synthesizer riff produces relentless timekeeping at three levels

WOMAN VS. MACHINE

Contrast between Summer’s gradually unfolding vocal line and slow harmonic change and active rhythms in many parts

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61-3
The Village People: Disco out of the Closet

The public image of the Village People was six guys dressed up as macho stereotypes among gays: the Indian (in full costume, including headdress), the leather man (missing only the Harley), the construction worker, the policeman, the cowboy, and the soldier. These expressions of hyper-maleness were, in effect, gay pinups. Their look was more important than their sound, although after a disastrous appearance on American Bandstand, Morali fired five of the six men and replaced them with new recruits.

Portrait of the original members of the Village People (l+r) Randy Jones (the cowboy), David Hodo (the construction worker), Felipe Rose (the American Indian), Victor Willis (the cop), Glenn Hughes (the leather man), and Alexander Briley (the G.I.).

The whole Village People act was an inside joke. Morali and gay audiences laughed behind their hands while straight America bought their records by the millions and copied the look—mustaches, leather jackets, and the like. Many listeners were not aware of the gay undertone to the lyrics—or if they were, they didn’t care.

Listening Cue

“Y.M.C.A.” (1978)

Jacques Morali,

Henrio Belolo, and

Victor Willis

The Village People.

STYLE Disco ⋅ FORM Verse/Chorus

Listen For …

INSTRUMENTATION

Voices (a lead vocal, plus others occasionally reinforcing the lead line), drums, tambourine, handclaps, electric bass, keyboard, violins, and brass (especially trumpets)

RHYTHM

Disco tempo (about 120 beats per minute). Bass drum thuds out the beat; backbeat is also strong.

Melody moves at a moderate pace with some syncopation. String and brass figurations often move four times as fast as the beat (sixteen-beat speed).

HARMONY

Updated versions of the “Heart and Soul” progression (verse and chorus are slightly different). The progression cycles through the entire song; it never resolves.

TEXTURE

Rich, layered texture: low = bass and bass drum; mid-range = voices, sustained strings, some brass riffs, and percussion sounds; high = brass riffs and string figuration. Always a thick sound

Remember …

CODED LYRIC

NYC YMCA = gay meeting place. Lyric full of inside jokes

DISCO, A MULTIPLE-MINORITY MUSIC

Disco’s original audience included gays, blacks, and Latinos; provoked homophobic and racially prejudiced reactions

SLICK DANCE MUSIC

Amateurish singing, relentless dance beat, and fancy strings

FUNK, DISCO, AND THE BEAT

Funk and disco are close musical relatives, but the more obvious beat in disco made it more popular

CONTROL OF THE PRODUCER

With disco the producer assumed the main creative responsibility. Singer(s) were primarily for image.

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The lyrics of the song have fun with this situation. Seemingly innocuous lines like “They have everything for men to enjoy/You can hang out with all the boys” take on a quite different meaning when understood in the context of the Y as a gay gathering place.

The music is quintessential disco. It’s apparent in the march-speed tempo, with the beat marked by the bass drum; active rhythms, especially the bass in the chorus and the string figuration; rich orchestration, with strings, oversize rhythm section, and electronic instruments; catchy chorus melody; and repetitive harmony.

61-4
Disco: Culture, Reception, and Influence

Although most disco artists came and went—Donna Summer was the biggest star, Chic the most successful band—disco was widely popular during the latter part of the seventies. During that three-year window it spread from urban dance clubs to the suburbs, and its audience grew considerably. Disco had clear and strong gay associations, as “Y.M.C.A.” makes clear, but it was more than music for gays and blacks. In this respect, Saturday Night Fever was a slice of life. There were many working-class urban youths who used disco dancing as an outlet.

Disco was more than the music or even the culture that had produced it. For many it became a lifestyle. It was hedonistic: Dancing was simply a prelude to more intimate forms of contact. It was exhibitionistic: Fake Afro wigs; skin-tight, revealing clothes; flamboyant accessories; platform shoes; everything glittering. And it was drug-ridden: With disco, cocaine and Quaaludes became mainstream drugs; the logo for Studio 54 showed the man in the moon ingesting cocaine from a silver spoon.

61-4aReactions against Disco

All this, plus the inevitable stream of mindless disco songs (the ratio of chaff to wheat in any genre is high; disco was no exception), gave disco’s detractors plenty of ammunition. They trashed the music and the culture. Ostensibly, it was simply a reaction against disco’s many excesses, but there was also a strong homophobic undercurrent. Perhaps the most notorious disco-bashing incident occurred in Chicago during the summer of 1979. Steve Dahl, a disc jockey at a local rock station, organized Disco Demolition Night. Fans who brought a disco record to a Chicago White Sox doubleheader got into the park for 98¢. They spent the first game chanting, “Disco sucks”; after the first game, they made a pile of records in centerfield. An attempted explosion turned into chaos.

61-4bDisco and Dance Fads

When disco disappeared from the charts and the radio, there was an “I told you so” response from those who hated it. But in retrospect, it would have been surprising if it had lasted much longer. All the major dance fads in the twentieth century have had short life spans: the Charleston and the Black Bottom in the early 1920s, jitterbugging and Lindy hopping around 1940, the Twist and other rock-and-roll dances around 1960. The Charleston and the Twist were dance fads that caught on somewhat after the introduction of new rhythms: the two-beat foxtrot in the teens and early twenties and the eight-beat rhythm of rock and roll in the fifties. Disco, like the jitterbug, was a dance fad that emerged with the division of popular music into two related rhythmic streams. In the thirties, it was sweet (two-beat) and swing (four-beat). In the seventies, it was rock (eight-beat) and disco (sixteen-beat). The swing and disco eras were brief periods when the more active rhythms of black and black-inspired music became truly popular. In both cases, much of the music was rhythmically more obvious than the music that had spawned it. Many of the hits of the swing era, especially by the white bands, laid down a strong beat but lacked the rhythmic play of music by Count Basie, Duke Ellington, or Benny Goodman. Similarly, disco was more rhythmically straightforward than funk or black pop. This made it accessible to a greater number of dancers but sacrificed musical interest in the process.

61-4cThe Influence of Disco

It shouldn’t be surprising that disco faded away so quickly. It was following much the same path as the other dance fads that signaled the arrival of a new beat. And it should not be surprising that a new beat took root in the music of the 1980s, following disco’s demise. In this way, disco was influential, far more so than its brief life span would suggest.

Disco has also had a more underground influence—on two levels. It was, more than any other popular style, the gateway for the wholesale infusion of electronica. And it created a new kind of underground dance-club culture, which would continue through the eighties and flower in the nineties.

CH.62 Punk

The attitudes expressed in the punk movement reflected deeply rooted contradictions in everyday life during the seventies. The “we” mindset of the sixties—the sense of collective energy directed toward a common goal—gave way to a “me” mindset, where people looked out for themselves. The various rights movements and the move toward a more democratic society eroded class distinctions at a rapid rate. Still, there was a strong conservative backlash in both Britain and the United States. At the same time, a prolonged recession, fueled in part by the absence of fuel due to the Arab oil embargo, gave working- and middle-class people little opportunity to take advantage of their new social mobility. And sky-high interest rates and inflation created the fear that today’s savings would be worth far less in the future. “No Future,” the nihilistic battle cry of the Sex Pistols, was in part a product of this bleak economic outlook.

62-2
The Power of Punk

Although the look screams outrage and the words scream rebellion, the power of punk comes through mainly in the music. It is the sounds and rhythms of punk that most strongly convey its energy and attitude, especially when experienced in its native environment—a small club overflowing with people. The music overwhelms, injecting the crowd with massive shots of energy.

Punk is to rock and roll what heroin is to opium: It gains its potency by distilling its most potent elements and presenting them in concentrated form. “Pure” punk songs are short; they say what they have to say quickly and move on. In their mid-seventies heyday, the Ramones would play 30-minute sets in which all of the songs lasted about 2 minutes. Within such brief time spans, punk offers songs that intensify the dangerous aspects of rock and roll: the volume, the sounds, the rhythms.

Punk is loud. Subtlety is not part of the equation; typically, it’s full-bore from beginning to end. Punk is noise: guitarists and bassists routinely use heavy distortion. Punk singing is the triumph of chutzpah over expertise. Indeed, the lack of vocal skill or sophistication was a virtual requirement; one couldn’t credibly croon a punk song. Part of the message was that anyone could front a band if he or she had the nerve. Punk is fast: Tempos typically exceed the pace of normally energetic movement—walking, marching, disco dancing. However, the most compelling feature of punk is its approach to rock rhythm.

62-2aSaturated Rock Rhythm

A brief recap of 20 years of rock rhythm: recall that what distinguished rock and roll from rhythm and blues was the eight-beat rhythm. We heard it in the guitar lines of Chuck Berry and the piano playing of Little Richard and gradually in other rhythm instruments, as musicians caught on to this new rhythmic conception. Move ahead to the late sixties and early seventies: as rock musicians became comfortable with rock rhythm, the basic rock beat became a springboard for rhythmic play, as we heard in the music of The Who, Led Zeppelin, and others.

Punk restored the essence and power of rock rhythm by isolating it, saturating the rhythmic texture with it, and speeding it up. In punk, the “default” way of playing the rock rhythmic layer was simply to repeat a note, a chord, or a drum stroke over and over at rock-beat speed. Musicians could graft riffs onto this rhythm to create variety and interest, but this was an overlay; typically, the eight-beat rhythm continues through the notes of the riffs. By contrast, Chuck Berry’s rhythm guitar patterns typically oscillate every beat between two chords. This oscillation creates slower rhythms that attenuate the impact of the faster rhythm. Punk strips away these slower rhythms, presenting rock rhythm in a purer form.

Punk made this “purer” form of rock rhythm stand out through a two-part strategy. First, the entire rhythm section typically reinforced it: Guitar(s), bass, and drums all hammer it out. Indeed, depending on the speed of the song and the skill of the drummer, the reinforcement could be heard on the bass drum as well as the drums or cymbals. Second, it favored explicit timekeeping over syncopation and other forms of rhythmic play. We sample the power of punk in a song by the Sex Pistols.

62-3
The Sex Pistols

McLaren found the Sex Pistols in his shop. Matlock, the original bassist with the group, worked for McLaren. When he let McLaren know that he and two of his friends, guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook, were putting together a band, McLaren found them rehearsal space, took over their management, and recruited a lead singer for them. John Lydon, who became Johnny Rotten (allegedly because of his less than meticulous personal hygiene), had been hanging around SEX for a while. McLaren had gotten to know him and felt that he had the capacity for outrage that he’d been looking for. (Another SEX shop hanger-on, Sid Vicious [John Ritchie], would eventually replace Matlock.)

In fact, none of the four had much musical skill at the time they formed the band. Jones was more adept at thievery than guitar playing: He stole the group’s first sound system. McLaren booked the group into small clubs, where they acquired more of a reputation for outrageous conduct than for musicianship. Word spread about the group through word of mouth, newspaper reviews, and subculture fanzines.

The Sex Pistols walk down the street in 1977 (l–r) Paul Cook, Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones.

Listening Cue

“God Save the Queen” (1977)

Cook,

Jones,

Matlock, and

Rotten

The Sex Pistols.

STYLE Punk ⋅ FORM Verse/chorus

Listen For …

INSTRUMENTATION

Vocal, guitar, bass, drums

PERFORMING STYLE

Abrasive vocal style: loud speech; less than singing; heavy distortion in guitar and bass

RHYTHM

Distilled, intensified rock rhythm at moderately fast tempo

MELODY

Most distinctive melodic material = guitar riffs; vocal not distinct melodically, even in chorus

TEXTURE

Thick, heavy sound; low-range power chords stand out

Remember …

INCENDIARY LYRICS

Song lyrics slam British royalty, establishment; “no future” = hard times for underclass

SOUND WITH AN EDGE

Abrasive vocal, distilled, aggressive, saturated rock rhythm, distorted power chords produce classic punk rock sound

POWER OF PUNK

Inflammatory message in lyrics reinforced by aggressive musical setting

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The music amplified the message of the lyrics. It wasn’t just that it was loud—particularly when heard in the small venues where the punk bands played. Or simple—power chords up and down the fretboard. It was the beat. Punk fulfilled the confrontational promise of the very first rock-and-roll records. It was the subversive element that got the revolutionary message across loud and clear, even when the lyrics didn’t. In “God Save the Queen,” guitar and bass move in tandem to hammer out a relentless rock rhythm almost all the way through; only the periodic guitar riffs that answer Rotten’s vocals give it a distinctive shape. The drummer reinforces this rock rhythm by pounding it out on the bass drum and either a tom-tom or hi-hat. Like the Ramones, the band distilled and intensified rock and roll’s revolutionary rhythmic essence. There is no way that a rock beat could be more pervasive or powerful.

The power of the song comes from its stylistic coherence. Every aspect of the song—the lyrics, Rotten’s vocal style, the absence of melody, simple power chords, the heavily distorted sounds, and the relentless, fast-paced beat—conveys the same basic message: they are mutually reinforcing.

The message of the Sex Pistols resonated throughout the United Kingdom. Many working-and middle-class youths were tired of the rigid class system that they inherited and foresaw a bleak future. The Sex Pistols’ songs encapsulated the frustration and rage they felt.

The Sex Pistols embodied the essence of punk in every respect. No one projected its sense of outrage and its outrageousness more baldly. Despite their meteoric rise and fall (Lydon announced the breakup of the group in January 1978), the Sex Pistols were enormously influential. No group in the history of rock had more impact with such a brief career.

CH.63 Punk Reverberations

The Clash came together in 1976 when Strummer (1952–2002) and Jones (b. 1955) teamed up with bassist Paul Simonon (b. 1955) and drummer Terry Chimes (b. 1955). Topper Headon (b. 1955) soon replaced Chimes. Simonon gave the group its name, which suited the confrontational personality of the group and their on-stage persona. In the summer of 1976, Strummer and Simonon found themselves in the middle of a riot between Jamaican immigrants and police. “White Riot,” the song that they wrote in response to the incident, was the group’s first major hit. It not only got the group noticed but also set the tone for their career: Many of their songs railed against political and social injustices. “White Riot” and many other early songs follow the lead of the Ramones; they are fast, loud, and crude. However, the group quickly evolved into a much more skilled and versatile band. By 1979, the year when they released London Calling, the Clash were at home in a variety of styles. However, they never lost the passion that informed their first work. It is evident in virtually all of their music, regardless of subject.

“Death or Glory,” a track from London Calling, comments on a central issue for the group: whether money will motivate a group to sell out. The lyric oozes attitude. The cast of characters includes a “cheap hood” and a “gimmick hungry yob” (“yob” is British slang for a young working-class thug). The images are brutal: The hood beats his kids; bands that haven’t got it should give it up. The chorus sums up the disillusionment that pervades the song.

The music that supports it is simply good rock, rather than high-energy pure punk. The song uses the conventional verse/chorus form; the chorus features catchy melodic hooks that embed themselves in listeners’ ears. Once under way, the song maintains a driving beat enriched with rhythmic interplay among the rhythm section players, except for an adventurous interlude that spotlights Headon. The texture is dense in a way that is typical of rock, with melodic lines in both guitars and bass, and there is an array of timbres, from the distorted chords that announce the chorus to the more mellow bass and guitar sounds in the introduction.

“Death or Glory” is not representative of London Calling, nor are any of the other tracks. Each song has a distinct character and musical setting; they range from swing-evoking “Jimmy Jazz” and reggae-inspired “Revolution Rock” to the clever punk-style “Koka Kola.”

Listening Cue

“Death or Glory” (1979)

Mick Jones and

John Mellor

The Clash.

STYLE Punk-influenced rock ⋅ FORM Verse/chorus form

Listen For …

INSTRUMENTATION

Lead and backup vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, electric bass, drums, keyboard

RHYTHM

Clean, active rock rhythm at moderately fast tempo, with most parts moving at eight-beat speed except during interlude, when activity doubles

Distinctive, often syncopated rhythm in guitar accompaniment

MELODY

Contrast between rapid rhythm, flat contour in verse, hooks in chorus, musing instrumental riffs in intro/interludes

TEXTURE

Thick texture, with much melodic interest in guitar parts underneath plain vocal line and in instrumental sections

Remember …

LYRICS IN FOREFRONT

Both verse and chorus put words in forefront; lyrics laced with brutal images of wannabes who fail as musicians and people

ROCK SONG CONVENTIONS

Verse/chorus form and melodic hooks make the song easy to follow and appealing

STRONG SECTIONAL CONTRASTS

Musing introduction, straight-ahead verse, chorus with can’t-miss hook, instrumental interludes shift to more or less relaxed rhythms

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More than any other group of the late seventies, the Clash demonstrated by example how to revitalize rock with words and music that mattered, because, unlike the “gimmick hungry yob,” they refused to compromise. (Interestingly, their record company undermined their integrity by marketing them as the “The Only Band That Matters,” a phrase created by their fans.)

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The Reverberations of Punk

Punk and new wave restored the soul of rock and roll. The important bands resurrected rock’s sense of daring and amped it up well beyond what had gone before. Their music contains powerful messages: political, social, and personal. However, in punk, the rock can be as brutally blunt in its musical message as in the lyrics. There is a synergy among attitude, words, and music that gives both punk and new wave unprecedented impact. Once again, this is rock music that sought to change the world, or at least shake it out of its complacency.

In punk, the message is primary, whether it is expressed directly or obliquely. This helps account for the relative simplicity of the musical materials—whether presented as a sound blitz (as in the Sex Pistols’ music) or with imagination (as in the music of the Clash and Talking Heads). If the musical setting were too elaborate, it would deflect attention away from the underlying intent of the song.

As with any significant new music, punk and new wave would reverberate through the music of the next generation. Punk, and especially the music of the Clash, served as a bridge between the significant rock of the sixties and the significant rock of the eighties, most notably the work of U2.

It introduced a new conception of rock rhythm that would filter into numerous mainstream and alternative styles. This was one reason why much of the rock from the eighties sounds as though it is from that decade and not from an earlier time. It sharpened the edge of much rock-era music, even the pop of Michael Jackson and Madonna. It opened the door for those outside corporate rock; the alternative movement that began in the early eighties continues the independent spirit that typified the punk and new wave music of the late seventies. That spirit lives on most fully in the post-punk bands that have emerged since 1980.