The Generation X Blues
Chpt. 18
MUSH 261: History of Rock and Roll
The New Generation
• Generation X
• Found little stability in families
• Baby boomers divorced in the 70’s leaving
may post-baby-boomers in single-family
households
• Turbulent families caused frustration, pain and
fear
• Abuse in the home
Violence
• Few economic prospects and painful/brutal
home life cause youth to become violent
• Youth witnessed violent actions daily on tv
Gun Violence
• In 1990 more than 4% of all high school
students surveyed, carried a gun
• Semiautomatic 9- millimeter
• Used the guns they carried
• Urban gangs
• Drawn to a loud aggressive, angry music
• Notions of Reagan-era fueled affluence
The Hardcore Generation
• Rock and Roll reflected the alienation of the
post-baby-boom generation
• Hardcore: desperate, angry and extreme
version of punk
• Began in the late 1970’s in Hollywood
X
• Hyperactive roar of English punk lyrics
describing a society degenerated beyond
repair
• 1980 debut album, Los Angeles, released by
Slash Records
• “Nausea”
• “Sex & Dying in High Society”
The Germs
• Much darker sound
• Ceremoniously burned themselves with
cigarettes
• One member, Crash, symbolically committed
suicide as a tribute to his hero Sid Vicious
• “We Must Bleed”
Dressed For War
• Young middle-class male suburbanites fueled
the hardcore explosion
• Shaved their heads – avoid hair pulling in
mosh pits
• Tattoos of band names and logos
• Pierced various parts of their body
• T-shirts, worn jeans, combat boots, leather
jackets with studs
Black Flag
•
•
•
•
Suburbanites/middle class
Songs about personal dysfunction
“Depression”
“Life of Pain”
The Dead Kennedys
• Embraced British punk
• Lyrics that lambasted U.S. imperialism, the
Moral Majority and the creeping facism
among some hardcore youths, who began to
wear Nazi armbands
• “Let’s Lynch the Landlord”
• “Kill the Poor”
The Dils
•
•
•
•
Political version of Punk
2 hard hitting singles
“I Hate the Rich”
“Class War”
Thrash Metal
• Originated with the New Wave of British
Heavy Metal (NWBHM)
• Poor British youths with no apparent future
formed bands to express their frustration
through a violent, explosive sound
Diamond Head
• Black Sabbath combined with Robert Plant
and John Bonham of Led Zepplin
• Had their own label: Happy Face
• “Lightning to the Nations”
Other Thrash Metal Groups
• Modeled on blues-based style
• Delivered harsh-sounding, fist-pumping music
• Saxon
• Venom
• Angel Witch
Heavy Metal Promotion
• Neil kay: Disc Jockey
– Promoted the albums of struggling
bands like Iron Maiden, at this Heavy
Metal Club, Landon’s Soundhouse
• Kerrang: Heavy-Metal Magazine
– Created underground metal fans and
spread the word
• Fanzines
AC/DC
• Blues powered Australian band
• Struggled during the mid 1970’s
• NWBHM gave exposure and they hit the
British top 10 and US top 20 with
“Highway to Hell”
Metallica
• Combined the different elements of the
NWBHM to create a new genre called “thrash”
or “speed metal”
• Swept across Britain & US during the mid 80’s
• Instead of going “Please like us” we were
like…. “AHHHHHH!! F*** You!”
• They were doing something new
• “a marvel of precisely channeled aggression”
Metallica
Metallica
• Signed with Metal Underground before being
snagged by Megaforce in New York
• Recorded Kill Em All, originally titled Metal Up
Your Ass
• Ride the Lightning - death and dying
• Master of Puppets – manipulation
• And Justice for All – American dream doesn’t
work out
• Metallica – sold 9 million copies
Death Metal
•
•
•
•
•
Violent, slasher-type lyrics
Nearly incomprehensible growls
Abrupt tempo
Key & time signature changes
Started in Florida with a band called Death
Death
•
•
•
•
Started in 1983
Scream Bloody Gore – 1987
Leprosy – 1988
Human - a more toned down album which
brought greater followers and MTV airplay
• Philosophy – 1995
– Title song received exposure on the TV Show
Beavis & Butthead
Cannibal Corpse
• Began in Buffalo New York
• Most vividly violent, gory lyrics imaginable
• Received their big break in 1994 by being
featured on the soundtrack for the film Ace
Ventura: Pet Detective
Grindcore
• Guttural growls of death metal
• Combined with speed of thrash
• Add the energy of hardcore punk
Napalm Death
• British Band-headed the Grindcore
Movement
• Had their own label: Earache
• Distribution deal with Columbia
Records
• Charted with Utopia Banished
• Followed by Fear, Emptiness & Despair
• “Twist the Knife (Slowly)”, hit the top
10 in 1995, as part of the soundtrack
to the movie Mortal Kombat
Industrial Revolution
• Industrial Music: wild buzz-saw abandon of
thrash metal combined with harsh, dissonant
vocals and electronic samples & synthesizers
• Roots in post punk pessimism that enveloped
England
Nine Inch Nails
• Added thrashing heavy metal guitar
• Made industrial music more accessible to
masses of disenchanted youth
• “The Perfect Drug”
Grunge
• Started in Seattle
• Combined hardcore and metal
• Bruce Pravitt
– Started the Fanzine, Subterranean Pop
– Hosted a show called Sub Pop U.S.A.
– Later turned Sub Pop into a record label
• Signed Nirvana
Sub Pop Fashion
• Created a downtrodden punk/metal fashion
unique to the Northwest
• Bands dressed in faded flannel shirts or tshirts, ripped jeans or baggy shorts, worn
boots & tennis shoes
• Long hair under woolen caps
Big Screen Sub Pop
• By the end of 1990, Sub Pop created the image of
Seattle as the site of an exciting, emerging music
scene
• ABC – Twin Peaks
– Flannel-clad coffee-drinking North westerners
• Northern Exposure
– extolled the virtues of the Northwest
• Singles – Movie
– About the punk/metal Seattle Scene
Nirvana
•
•
•
•
Left Sub Pop
Signed with David Geffen’s DGC label
Became a national phenomenon
Nevermind – 1991
– Album went gold before MTV played “Smells Like
Teen Spirit”
• Appeared on SNL and were featured in Rolling
Stone and Spin
Pearl Jam
• Followed Nirvana to the top of the charts
• Ten
– Waited 20 weeks to crack the top 20
– Topped the charts in the wake of Nirvana’s success
selling 12 million copies
Green Day
• Signed with Warner-Reprise
• Dookie
– Offered listeners lyrics of hopelessness behind
snappy, bright, 1990’s punk
• “Welcome to Paradise”
• “Burn Out”
• “Basket Case”