Bertan Asllani

MUSIC GENRE
A music genre is a category (or genre) of pieces of music that share a certain style or "basic musical language". Music can also be categorised by non-musical criteria such as geographical origin.

POPULAR MUSIC GENRE
Blues - The Blues is a vocal and instrumental music form which emerged in the African-American community of the United States. Blues evolved from West African spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants and has its earliest stylistic roots in West Africa. This musical form has been a major influence on later American and Western popular music, finding expression in ragtime, jazz, big bands, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and country music, as well as conventional pop songs and even modern classical music. Due to its powerful influence that spawned other major musical genres originating from America, blues can be regarded as the root of pop as well as American music.
Hip Hop/Rap - Hip hop music (also referred to as rap or rap music) is a style of popular music. It is made up of two main components: rapping (MCing) and DJing (audio mixing and scratching). Along with breakdancing and graffiti (tagging) these are the four elements of hip hop, a cultural movement that was initiated by inner-city youth (mostly minorities such as African Americans and Latinos) in New York City in the early 1970s. Typically, hip hop music consists of one or more rappers who tell semi-autobiographic tales, often relating to a fictionalized counterpart, in an intensely rhythmic lyrical form making abundant use of techniques like assonance, alliteration, and rhyme. The rapper is accompanied by an instrumental track, usually referred to as a "beat", performed by a DJ, created by a producer, or one or more instrumentalists. This beat is often created using a sample of the percussion break of another song, usually a funk, rock, or soul recording. In addition to the beat other sounds are often sampled, synthesized, or performed. Sometimes a track can be instrumental, as a showcase of the skills of the DJ or producer.
Rhythm and Blues - Rhythm and blues is a name for black popular music tradition. When speaking strictly of "rhythm 'n' blues", the term may refer to black pop-music from 1940s to 1960s that was not jazz nor blues but something more lightweight. The term "R&B" often refers to any contemporary black pop music. Early-1950s R&B music became popular with both black and white audiences, and popular records were often covered by white artists, leading to the development of rock and roll.A notable subgenre of rhythm 'n' blues was doo-wop, which put emphasis on polyphonic singing. In the early 1960s rhythm 'n' blues took influences from gospel and rock and roll and thus soul music was born. In the late 1960s, funk music started to evolve out of soul; by the 1970s funk had become its own subgenre that stressed complex, "funky" rhythm patterns and monotonistic compositions based on a riff or two. In the early to mid 1970s, hip hop music (also known as "rap") grew out of funk and reggae. Funk and soul music evolved into contemporary R&B (no longer an acronym) in the 1980s, which cross-pollinated with hip-hop for the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st century.
POP Music - Pop music is a music genre which began in the 1950s, and is music that is generally popular to a wide range of people, hence "popular music". With the introduction of vinyl records in the 1930s, and later CDs (Compact Discs) in the 80s, recorded music became more widely available, as opposed to live music. Pop songs often make use of the 3-minute song to create hit records in the Pop Singles Charts (Billboard Hot 100). It uses melodies that are usually easily listenable, and therefore appeal to many. Pop music is characterised by a heavy rhythmic element, and often with the use of electronic amplification, while the melody line may also be dominant. It also refers to popular songs that people generally enjoy singing. It is commercially and radio friendly, readily accessible, memorable and easily marketable, often with a catchy chorus. It draws from a wide range of musical influences from pop/rock, R&B, country, soul, rock, jazz, folk and more.
Rock - Rock, in its broadest sense, can refer to almost all popular music recorded since the early 1950s. Its earliest form, rock and roll, arose from multiple genres in the late 1940s, most importantly jump blues. Although invented by Chuck Berry, it was first popularized by performers like Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, and Elvis Presley, who fused the sound with country music, resulting in rockabilly. In addition, gospel music and a related genre, R&B (rhythm and blues), emerged later in the decade. R&B soon became one of the most popular genres, with girl groups, garage rock and surf rock most popular in the US, while harder, more blues-oriented musicians became popular in the UK, which soon developed into British blues, merseybeat, mod and skiffle. Starting the mid-1960s, a group of British bands that played variations on American R&B-influenced blues became popular on both sides of the Atlantic - the British Invasion, a catchall term for multiple genres. These groups, including the Beatles, fused the earlier sounds with Appalachian folk music, forming folk rock, as well as a variety of less-popular genres, including the singer-songwriter tradition. Early heavy metal and punk rock bands formed in this period, though these genres did not emerge as such for several years.
Jazz - Jazz is a musical form that grew out of a cross-fertilization of folk blues, ragtime, and European music, particularly band music. It has been called the first native art form to develop in the United States of America. The music has gone through a series of developments since its inception. In roughly chronological order they are Dixieland, swing/big band, bebop, hard bop, cool jazz, free jazz, jazz fusion and smooth jazz. Jazz is primarily an instrumental form of music. The instrument most closely associated with jazz may be the saxophone, followed closely by the trumpet. The trombone, piano, double bass, guitar and drums are also primary jazz instruments. The clarinet and banjo were often used, especially in the earlier styles of jazz. Although there have been many renowned jazz vocalists, and many of the most well-known jazz tunes have lyrics, the majority of well-known and influential jazz musicians and composers have been instrumentalists. During the time of its widest popularity, roughly 1920 to 1950, jazz and popular music had a very intimate connection. Popular songs drew upon jazz influences, and many jazz hits were reworkings of popular songs, or lyrics were written for jazz tunes in an attempt to create popular hits. The single most distinguishing characteristic of jazz is improvisation. Jazz also tends to utilize complex chord structures and an advanced sense of harmony. These characteristics in combination with the use of improvisation require a high degree of technical skill and musical knowledge from the performers. The art form today is a widely varied one, using influences from all of the past styles, although the root of modern jazz is primarily bebop. Modern jazz can also incorporate elements of rock and roll, electronica, and hip-hop. Jazz was a direct influence on Rhythm and blues, and therefore a secondary influence on most later genres of popular music. Modern American art music composers have often used elements of jazz in their compositions.

MUSIC VIDEOS (some history)

A music video is a short film or video that accompanies a complete piece of music, most commonly a song. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings. Although the origins of music videos go back much further, they came into their own in the 1980s, when MTV (Music Television)'s format was based around them.

The key innovation in the development of the modern music video was, of course, video recording and editing processes, along with the development of a number of related effects such as chroma-key. The advent of high-quality colour videotape recorders and portable video cameras coincided with the DIY ethos of the New Wave era and this enabled many pop acts to produce promotional videos quickly and cheaply, in comparison to the relatively high costs of using film. However, as the genre developed music video directors increasingly turned to 35mm film as the preferred medium, while others mixed film and video. By the mid-1980s releasing a music video to accompany a new single had become standard, and acts like The Jacksons sought to gain a commercial edge by creating lavish music videos with million dollar budgets; most notable with the video for "Can You Feel It".

In the UK the importance of Top of the Pops to promote a single created an environment of innovation and competition amongst bands and record labels as the show's producers placed strict limits on the number of videos it would use - therefore a good video would increase a song's sales as viewers hoped to see the video again the following week. David Bowie scored his first UK number one in nearly a decade thanks to director David Mallets' eye catching promo for "Ashes to Ashes" . Another act to succeed from this tactic was Madness who shot on 16mm and 35mm short micro-comedic films.

In the early to mid 1980s, artists started to use more sophisticated effects in their videos, and added a storyline or plot to the music video. Michael Jackson was the first artist to create the concept of the short film. A short film is a music video that has a beginning, middle and end. He did this in a small way with Billie Jean, directed by Steve Barron, then in a West Side Story way with director Bob Giraldi's Beat It, but it wasn't until the 1984 release of the Thriller short film that he took the music video format to another level.

1986 became a landmark year for music videos, thanks to Peter Gabriel's smash hit "Sledgehammer." The video broke new ground in the use of special effects and sophisticated animation techniques. It was animated by British studio Aardman Animation (and, incidentally, was one of Nick Park's first projects with the studio). Sledgehammer won 9 MTV Video Music Awards in 1986, a record which still stands. The video is, to this day, considered one of the most important and influential music videos ever created, being placed at #1 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "Top 100 Music Videos" in 1993, and placing #4 on a similar list from MTV in 1999. MTV has stated that "Sledgehammer" is the most-played video in the channel's history. "Sledgehammer" is not Gabriel's only contribution to the medium, however. Most of Gabriel's videos employ sophisticated animation and other cutting edge special effects, and he has long been considered one of the music video's foremeost innovators.

In 1981, the U.S. video channel MTV launched, beginning an era of 24-hour-a-day music on television. (The first video broadcast was "Video Killed the Radio Star", by The Buggles.) With this new outlet for material, the music video would, by the mid-1980s, grow to play a central role in popular music marketing. Many important acts of this period, most notably Madonna and Mylene Farmer, owed a great deal of their success to the skillful construction and seductive appeal of their videos.

The earliest purveyors of music videos on the internet were members of IRC-based groups who took the time to record music videos as they appeared on television, then digitising them and exchanging the .mpg files via IRC channels. As broadband Internet access has become available more widely, various initiatives have been made to capitalise on the continued interest in music videos.

Another new phenomenon, deriving from the popularity of blogging, is the use of so-called music video "codes", lines of HTML code including links to music videos that the individual can simply copy and paste into their blog in order to feature a given video streaming on it. YouTube, Google Video, IFilm and MySpace have become primary venues for viewing videos. YouTube is claiming up to six million viral video streams a day.

The list of most expensive music videos (source wikipedia):
Michael Jackson & Janet Jackson "Scream" (dir:Mark Romanek) June 1995 $7,000,000
Puff Daddy (featuring Notorious B.I.G. & Busta Rhymes) "Victory" (dir:Marcus Nispel) 1998-03-31 $2,700,000+
Mariah Carey "Heartbreaker" (dir:Brett Ratner) 1999-08-16 $2,500,000 Busta Rhymes (featuring Janet Jackson) "What's It Gonna Be?!" (dir: Hype Williams & Busta Rhymes) 1999-03-12 $2,400,000+
Backstreet Boys "Larger Than Life" (dir:Joseph Kahn) September 1999 $2,100,000+
Ayumi Hamasaki "fairyland" (dir:Wataru Takeishi) 2005 $2,000,000+
Madonna "Bedtime Story" (dir:Mark Romanek) April 1995 $2,000,000+
Madonna "Express Yourself" (dir:David Fincher) April 1989 $2,000,000+
Will Smith "Miami" (dir:Wayne Isham) December 1998 $2,000,000
Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliot "She's a Bitch" (dir:Hype Williams) 1999-05-01 $2,000,000+
TLC "Unpretty" (dir:Paul Hunter) 1999-07-29 $1,600,000+
Guns N' Roses "November Rain" (dir:Andy Morahan) 1992-06-02 $1,500,000+
BLACKstreet & Janet Jackson (featuring Ja Rule & Eve) "Girlfriend/Boyfriend" (dir:Joseph Kahn) 1999-03-03 $1,500,000+
Britney Spears "Toxic" (dir:Joseph Kahn) 2004-01-13 $1,000,000+