Bigger Than America
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Bigger Than America
''Bigger Than America'' is the sixth studio album by the English synthpop band Heaven 17. It was originally released in September 1996, on the label Eye of the Storm, eight years after their previous album, '' Teddy Bear, Duke & Psycho''. The album peaked at number one on Germany Alphabeat Redaktionscharts' Rock/Pop/Alternative Charts in November 1996, but did not chart in the UK. It was listed as number 6 on the online music magazine Addicted to Noise's Writers Poll. In an interview with '' The Guardian'' in 2010, Ware recalled: "This went under the radar to the extent that hardly anybody in this country knew about it; we did do an album in '95 called ''Bigger Than America'', which was our attempt to re-engage early analogue synths and create an album based on that. It just got lost in the big Warner Brothers machine." Critical reception Upon its release, Caroline Sullivan of '' The Guardian'' commented: "Heaven 17 have hardly changed ndthings are much the same - just less m ...
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Studio Album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual Phonograph record#78 rpm disc developments, 78 rpm records collected in a bound book resembling a photograph album; this format evolved after 1948 into single vinyl LP record, long-playing (LP) records played at  revolutions per minute, rpm. The album was the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption from the mid-1960s to the early 21st century, a period known as the album era. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have mostly focused on CD and MP3 formats. The 8-track tape was the first tape format widely used alongside vinyl from 1965 until being phased out by 1983 and was gradually supplanted by the cassette tape during the 1970s and early 1980s; the populari ...
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Keyboard (magazine)
''Keyboard'' is a magazine that originally covered electronic keyboard instruments and keyboardists, though with the advent of computer-based recording and audio technology, they have added digital music technology to their regular coverage, including those not strictly pertaining to the keyboard-related instruments. The magazine has its headquarters in San Bruno, California. History and profile Future is the owner of ''Keyboard'' which was launched in 1975. During the initial years the magazine was named ''Contemporary Keyboard''. Over the years, the print and online editions of the magazine have moved into discussions on anything related to gear. The editors and writers of the magazine have covered historical information and stories on the development of keyboards from their inception with pioneers such as Moog Music. At times, editorial and guest articles in the magazine have covered subjects including music philosophy, keyboarding instruction, music theory, and harmonics. ...
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1996 Albums
File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone on board; Eight people die in a blizzard on Mount Everest; Dolly the Sheep becomes the first mammal to have been cloned from an adult somatic cell; The Port Arthur Massacre occurs on Tasmania, and leads to major changes in Australia's gun laws; Macarena, sung by Los del Río and remixed by The Bayside Boys, becomes a major dance craze and cultural phenomenon; Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 crash-ditches off of the Comoros Islands after the plane was hijacked; the 1996 Summer Olympics are held in Atlanta, marking the Centennial (100th Anniversary) of the modern Olympic Games., 300x300px, thumb rect 0 0 200 200 Centennial Olympic Park bombing rect 200 0 400 200 TWA FLight 800 rect 400 0 600 200 1996 Mount Everest disaster rect 0 200 30 ...
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Ray Smith (artist)
Ray Smith (1949–2018) was an English sculptor, painter, illustrator and writer. He exhibited his work widely, and received a number awards, including an award by the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1973, and the Royal Society of Arts Architecture Award in 1993. Smith also wrote several books on art for the publisher Dorling Kindersley and designed a selection of record sleeves. In an obituary in ''The Guardian'', Ghislaine Kenyon described Smith as "the complete artist", and despite having had no formal art training, "he expressed himself playfully in words, music and visual arts, using myriad techniques and media." Biography Smith was born in 1949 in Harrow, London to Geoff Smith and Pat Smith (née Pearce). He attended Southend High School for Boys in Essex and studied English at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Smith graduated in 1971, and in the 1970s and 1980s, he freelanced in London, where he taught English at the Cambridge School of English and lectured at the Chelsea Schoo ...
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Martyn Ware
Martyn Ware (born 19 May 1956) is an English musician, composer, arranger, record producer, and music programmer. As a founding member of both the Human League and Heaven 17, Ware was partly responsible for hit songs such as " Being Boiled" and "Temptation". Ware has also worked as a record producer, notably helping to revitalise Tina Turner's career in 1983 with " Let's Stay Together", kick starting Terence Trent D'Arby's career by co-producing his solo debut, '' Introducing the Hardline According to...'' in 1987 and producing Erasure's '' I Say I Say I Say'' album in 1994. He is also noted for work in surround sound technology and, more recently, for creation of sound installations. Early years Ware was born and grew up in Sheffield, England. After leaving King Edward VII School, he worked in the computer industry. With his first wages, he bought a Korg 700 monophonic keyboard and started experimenting with electronic sound. Music career The Human League In the 1970s, Ware a ...
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Ian Craig Marsh
Ian Craig Marsh (born 11 November 1956) is an English musician and composer. He was a founding member of the electronic band the Human League, writing and playing on their first two albums and several singles, until leaving in 1980 to form the British Electric Foundation and later Heaven 17. Musical career Marsh began in music at Sheffield's council-sponsored community theatre group Meatwhistle. There he met Mark Civico; they formed a performance art band called Musical Vomit, taking the name from a music paper's hostile review of the band Suicide.Blind Youth: The early work of the Human League
Ex-rental.com, (archived)
Musical Vomit specialised in



Glenn Gregory
Glenn Peter Gregory (born 16 May 1958) is an English singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose music career spans more than 40 years. He came to prominence in the early 1980s as co-founder and lead singer of the new wave and synthpop band Heaven 17, which released several UK chart hits in the 1980s and 1990s, including "Temptation", "Let Me Go", " Come Live with Me", " Crushed by the Wheels of Industry", "Sunset Now", " This Is Mine", and " (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang" Early years Glenn Peter Gregory was born on 16 May 1958 in Sheffield, England. His father, Howard, was a steel worker. As a teenager, he wanted to be an actor, but he worked in London as a photographer. Music career In 1977, Gregory was part of the band 57 Men, formed by Jack Hues and Nick Feldman, who both later formed the band Wang Chung. Gregory knew the founding members of The Human League for many years. He had been singing and playing bass guitar in bands with Ian Craig Marsh since ...
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Designing Heaven
"Designing Heaven" is a song by the British new wave and synth-pop band Heaven 17, released in 1996 as the lead single from their sixth studio album, ''Bigger Than America''. It was written by band members Glenn Gregory, Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware, and was produced by Marsh and Ware under their production company British Electric Foundation. The song peaked at number 128 in the UK Singles Chart. It was the band's first release of new material since 1988. Critical reception Upon its release, ''Music & Media'' called "Designing Heaven" "a charmingly old-fashioned track" from the "seminal synthesizer pop pioneers" and noted that, although the song does not "deliver a strong hook", it "captures that classic 1980s pop glamour". The reviewer added that Giorgio Moroder's remix is "built around the bass sequence" he used on Donna Summer's 1975 track " Love to Love You Baby". Alan Jones, writing for '' Music Week'', remarked that Heaven 17 "sound much as they did in their Virgi ...
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Knight Ridder
Knight Ridder was an American media company, specializing in newspaper and Internet publishing. Until it was bought by McClatchy on June 27, 2006, it was the second largest newspaper publisher in the United States, with 32 daily newspaper brands sold. Its headquarters were located in San Jose, California. History Origins The corporate ancestors of Knight Ridder were Knight Newspapers, Inc. and Ridder Publications, Inc. The first company was founded by John S. Knight upon inheriting control of the '' Akron Beacon Journal'' from his father, Charles Landon Knight, in 1933; the second company was founded by Herman Ridder when he acquired the , a German language newspaper, in 1892. As anti-German sentiment increased in the interwar period, Ridder successfully transitioned into English language publishing by acquiring ''The Journal of Commerce'' in 1926. Both companies went public in 1969 and merged on July 11, 1974. For a brief time, the combined company was the largest newspaper p ...
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Select (magazine)
''Select'' was a United Kingdom music magazine of the 1990s. It was known for covering indie rock, but featured a wide array of music. Launched in July 1990, its first cover star was Prince. After EMAP Metro bought ''Select'', they revamped its image, and it became known for its coverage of Britpop, a term coined in the magazine by Stuart Maconie. Its 1993 "Yanks Go Home" edition, featuring The Auteurs, Denim, Saint Etienne, Pulp and Suede's Brett Anderson on the cover in front of a Union Flag, was an important impetus in defining the movement's opposition to American genres such as grunge. Later, John Harris stepped down as editor, and was replaced by former ''Mixmag'' editor Alexis Petridis. Under Petridis, the magazine's image moved back towards its coverage on an eclectic array of music, aiming to reach what Petridis described as "a wide range of music fans". The magazine folded in late 2000, amid competition on the internet. Tagline * Pop Babylon! (circa 1994) * Mus ...
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Heaven 17
Heaven 17 are an English new wave and synth-pop band that formed in Sheffield in 1980. The band were a trio for most of their career, composed of Martyn Ware (keyboards) and Ian Craig Marsh (keyboards) (both previously of the Human League), and Glenn Gregory (vocals, keyboards). Although most of the band's music was recorded in the 1980s, they have occasionally reformed to record and perform, playing their first ever live concerts in 1997. Marsh left the band in 2007 and Ware and Gregory continued to perform as Heaven 17. History 1980s Origin and Formation Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware were the founding members of pioneering Sheffield electro-pop or synthpop group the Human League; Glenn Gregory (who had previously been in a punk band called Musical Vomit with Marsh) had been their original choice when seeking a lead singer for the band but as he had moved to London to work as a photographer at the time, they chose Ware's school friend Philip Oakey instead. When personal and ...
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The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ...
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