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The Spinning Top
''The Spinning Top'' is the seventh studio album by Blur guitarist Graham Coxon on new record label Transgressive Records. The album is produced by Stephen Street and was released on 11 May 2009. It was Coxon's first album since '' Crow Sit on Blood Tree'' (2001) to be released while concurrently a member of Blur, and the first to be released following his returned to Blur in 2008. It is a concept album that follows a narrative of a man from birth to death. The album was supported by the single " Sorrow's Army", released on 18 May. Production The cover art and liner artwork, like previous releases, was painted by Coxon himself. The two music promos Sorrow's Army and In the Morning were filmed by creative director Nick Craske. Dead Bees, the third single from The Spinning Top, was filmed by Chris Hopewell. Live Album Tour Coxon took the album on tour around the release date in May 2009 and also in November 2009 after the cool down from July's Blur reform gigs at Hyde Par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graham Coxon
Graham Leslie Coxon (born 12 March 1969) is an English musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and painter who came to prominence as a founding member of the rock band Blur. As the group's lead guitarist and secondary vocalist, Coxon is featured on all eight of Blur's studio albums (although 2003's ''Think Tank'' only features his playing on one track, due to his temporary departure from the band during recording sessions for the album). He has also led a solo career since 1998, which all of his solo albums were produced and all the instruments played by himself. As well as being a musician, Coxon is a visual artist: he designed the cover art for all his solo albums as well as Blur's '' 13'' (1999). Coxon plays several instruments and records his albums with little assistance from session musicians. ''Q'' magazine critic Adrian Deevoy has written: "Coxon is an astonishing musician. His restless playing style – all chord slides, rapid pulloffs, mini-arpeggios and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PopMatters
''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater, visual arts, travel, and the Internet. History ''PopMatters'' was founded by Sarah Zupko, who had previously established the cultural studies academic resource site PopCultures. ''PopMatters'' launched in late 1999 as a sister site providing original essays, reviews and criticism of various media products. Over time, the site went from a weekly publication schedule to a five-day-a-week magazine format, expanding into regular reviews, features, and columns. In the fall of 2005, monthly readership exceeded one million. From 2006 onward, ''PopMatters'' produced several syndicated newspaper columns for McClatchy-Tribune News Service. By 2009 there were four different pop culture related col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excluding zoomusicological instruments and the human voice, the percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments.''The Oxford Companion to Music'', 10th edition, p.775, In spite of being a very common term to designate instruments, and to relate them to their players, the percussionists, percussion is not a systematic classificatory category of instruments, as described by the scientific field of organology. It is shown below that percussion instruments may belong to the organological classes of ideophone, membranophone, aerophone and cordophone. The percussion section of an orchestra most commonly contains instruments such as the timpani, snare drum, bass drum, tambourine, belonging to the membranophones, and cy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dilruba
The dilruba (also spelt dilrupa) is a bowed musical instrument originating in India. It is slightly larger than an esraj and has a larger, square resonance box. The dilruba holds particular importance in Sikh history. It became more widely known outside India in the 1960s through use in songs by Western artists, such as the Beatles during their psychedelic phase (most notably in the song "Within You Without You"). Etymology The name of the instrument derives from the Persianized Hindustani word دلربا/दिलरुबा (''dilrubā''), literally meaning "that which ravishes or steals the heart." History The traditional story is that the dilruba was invented around 300 years ago by the 10th Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh, who based it on the much older and much heavier taus. His innovations made it more convenient for the Sikh army (the ''khalsa'') to carry the instrument on horseback. There is some doubt in the research community about the truth of the traditional or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700. Description The word "piano" is a shortened form of ''pianoforte'', the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from ''clavicembalo col piano e forte'' (key cimbalom with quiet and loud)Pollens (1995, 238) and ''fortepiano''. The Italian musical terms ''piano'' and ''forte'' indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on the keys: the grea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bass Guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length, and typically four to six strings or courses. Since the mid-1950s, the bass guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music. The four-string bass is usually tuned the same as the double bass, which corresponds to pitches one octave lower than the four lowest-pitched strings of a guitar (typically E, A, D, and G). It is played primarily with the fingers or thumb, or with a pick. To be heard at normal performance volumes, electric basses require external amplification. Terminology According to the ''New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', an "Electric bass guitar sa Guitar, usually with four heavy strings tuned E1'–A1'–D2–G2." It also defines ''bass'' as "Bass (iv). A contraction of Double bas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drums
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching Drum stick, drumsticks, one in each hand, and uses their feet to operate a foot-controlled hi-hat and bass drum pedal. A standard kit may contain: * A snare drum, mounted on a snare drum stand, stand * A bass drum, played with a percussion mallet, beater moved by a foot-operated pedal * One or more Tom drum, tom-toms, including Rack tom, rack toms and/or floor tom, floor toms * One or more Cymbal, cymbals, including a ride cymbal and crash cymbal * Hi-hat cymbals, a pair of cymbals that can be manipulated by a foot-operated pedal The drum kit is a part of the standard rhythm section and is used in many types of popular and traditional music styles, ranging from rock music, rock and pop music, pop to blues and jazz. __TOC__ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soprano Saxophone
The soprano saxophone is a higher-register variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument invented in the 1840s. The soprano is the third-smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists (from smallest to largest) of the soprillo, sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass, contrabass saxophone and tubax. Soprano saxophones are the smallest and thus highest-pitched saxophone in common use. The instrument A transposing instrument pitched in the key of B, modern soprano saxophones with a high F key have a range from concert A3 to E6 (written low B to high F) and are therefore pitched one octave above the tenor saxophone. There is also a soprano saxophone pitched in C, which is uncommon; most examples were produced in America in the 1920s. The soprano has all the keys of other saxophone models (with the exception of the low A on some baritones and altos). Soprano saxophones were originally keyed from low B to high E, but a low B mechanism was patented in 1887 and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vocals
Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without accompaniment by musical instruments. Singing is often done in an ensemble of musicians, such as a choir. Singers may perform as soloists or accompanied by anything from a single instrument (as in art song or some jazz styles) up to a symphony orchestra or big band. Different singing styles include art music such as opera and Chinese opera, Indian music, Japanese music, and religious music styles such as gospel, traditional music styles, world music, jazz, blues, ghazal, and popular music styles such as pop, rock, and electronic dance music. Singing can be formal or informal, arranged, or improvised. It may be done as a form of religious devotion, as a hobby, as a source of pleasure, comfort, or ritual as part of music education or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A plectrum or individual finger picks may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier. The guitar is classified as a chordophone – meaning the sound is produced by a vibrating string stretched between two fixed points. Historically, a guitar was constructed from wood with its strings made of catgut. Steel guitar strings were introduced near the end of the nineteenth century in the United States; nylon strings came in the 1940s. The guitar's ancestors include the gittern, the vihuela, the four- course Renaissance guitar, and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blur (band)
Blur are an English rock band formed in London in 1988. The band consists of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Their debut album, ''Leisure'' (1991), incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegazing. Following a stylistic change influenced by English guitar pop groups such as the Kinks, the Beatles and XTC, Blur released ''Modern Life Is Rubbish'' (1993), ''Parklife'' (1994) and '' The Great Escape'' (1995). As a result, the band helped to popularise the Britpop genre and achieved mass popularity in the UK, aided by a chart battle with rival band Oasis in 1995 dubbed "The Battle of Britpop". Blur's self-titled fifth album (1997) saw another stylistic shift, influenced by the lo-fi styles of American indie rock groups, and became their third UK chart-topping album. Its single " Song 2" brought the band mainstream success in the US for the first time. Their next album, '' 13'' (1999) saw the band experimenting with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Concept Album
A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Sometimes the term is applied to albums considered to be of "uniform excellence" rather than an LP with an explicit musical or lyrical motif. There is no consensus among music critics as to the specific criteria for what a "concept album" is. The format originates with folk singer Woody Guthrie's ''Dust Bowl Ballads'' (1940) and was subsequently popularized by traditional pop/jazz singer Frank Sinatra's 1940s–50s string of albums, although the term is more often associated with rock music. In the 1960s several well-regarded concept albums were released by various rock bands, which eventually led to the invention of progressive rock and rock opera. Since then, many concept albums have been released across numerous musical genres. Definiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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