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The Pop Group
The Pop Group are an English rock band formed in Bristol in 1977 by vocalist Mark Stewart, guitarist John Waddington, bassist Simon Underwood, guitarist/saxophonist Gareth Sager, and drummer Bruce Smith. Their work in the late 1970s crossed diverse musical influences including punk, dub, funk, and free jazz with radical politics, helping to pioneer post-punk music. The group released two albums, '' Y'' (1979) and ''For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?'' (1980), and the singles "She Is Beyond Good and Evil" and " We Are All Prostitutes" (both 1979), then split in 1981. Its members worked on a variety of subsequent projects, including New Age Steppers and Rip Rig + Panic. In 2010, the band reunited, touring and releasing new material. History Original run (1977–1981) The Pop Group was formed in 1977 in Bristol when teenager Mark Stewart set out to start a funk group with schoolmates John Waddington and Simon Underwood. Inspired by the energy of punk rock but fe ...
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Bristol
Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in South West England. The wider Bristol Built-up Area is the eleventh most populous urban area in the United Kingdom. Iron Age hillforts and Roman villas were built near the confluence of the rivers Frome and Avon. Around the beginning of the 11th century, the settlement was known as (Old English: 'the place at the bridge'). Bristol received a royal charter in 1155 and was historically divided between Gloucestershire and Somerset until 1373 when it became a county corporate. From the 13th to the 18th century, Bristol was among the top three English cities, after London, in tax receipts. A major port, Bristol was a starting place for early voyages of exploration to the New World. On a ship out of Bristol in 1497, John Cabot, a Venetia ...
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Bruce Smith (musician)
Bruce Neal Smith (born 14 December 1960 in California) is an American musician best known as the drummer for post-punk band The Pop Group. He has also been a member of The Slits and the New Age Steppers and is currently performing with Public Image Ltd. He was raised and educated in Bristol, England and was once married to Neneh Cherry. Career Smith helped co-found The Pop Group in 1977 and would play with them until they disbanded in 1981. Smith was also part of the line-up when the band re-formed in 2010. While the Pop Group was still active, Smith also joined The Slits in 1979, replacing Budgie, and would play with them until they disbanded in 1981. After the Pop Group and the Slits, Smith teamed up with Adrian Sherwood and performed with the New Age Steppers and various other acts on Sherwood's On-U Sound Records label. He married Neneh Cherry, who was also involved with the New Age Steppers, during this period. Smith and Cherry then went on to form Rip Rig + Panic wit ...
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We Are All Prostitutes (song)
"We Are All Prostitutes" is a song by English post-punk band The Pop Group. It was released as the band's second single on 9 November 1979 through Rough Trade Records. The song is a critique of consumerism. The song was included as the third track in the 2016 reissue of The Pop Group's 1980 album '' For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?'' Reception Songwriter Nick Cave declared the song to be the band's masterpiece, saying, "It had everything that I thought rock and roll should have. It was violent, paranoid music for a violent, paranoid time." Writer Mark Fisher described the song "scouring, seesawing, seasick funk, a pied piper’s exit from dominant reality, fired by a fissile compound of millenarian terror and militant jubilation." Fisher, Mark"The Pop Group's ''How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?''" ''Fact''. February 2016. Legacy (*) designates unordered lists. Formats and track listing All songs written by The Pop Group. *UK 7" single (RT ...
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She Is Beyond Good And Evil
"She Is Beyond Good and Evil" is a song by English post-punk band The Pop Group. It was released as a single on March 2, 1979, through Radar Records. This song has been covered by the indie rock musician St. Vincent. Lyrics In discussing the song, Stewart described the lyrics as "being about unconditional love as a revolutionary force -- where idealism and energy mix poetic, existential, and political yearnings with the romantic idea of passing through nihilism and emerging on the other side with something positive, something beyond." Accolades (*) designates unordered lists. Formats and track listing All songs written by The Pop Group. ;UK 7" single (ADA 29) # "She Is Beyond Good and Evil" – 3:23 # "3'38" – 3:38 Personnel ;The Pop Group * Gareth Sager – saxophone, guitar * Bruce Smith – drums, percussion * Mark Stewart – vocals * Simon Underwood – bass guitar * John Waddington – guitar ;Technical person ...
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For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?
''For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?'' is the second studio album by English post-punk band The Pop Group. It was released on 21 March 1980 through the record labels Rough Trade and Y. Initially released to mixed reviews, the album has received critical acclaim in recent years. After being commercially unavailable for several decades, it was reissued in February 2016. Fisher, Mark"The Pop Group's ''How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?''" ''Fact''. February 2016. All Japanese Rough Trade CD editions were identical to the original LP, but the UK Freaks R Us CD is incomplete, replacing the track "One Out of Many" with the stand-alone single " We Are All Prostitutes". The 2016 reissue also uses this tracklisting. Background and music ''For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?'' was recorded at Foel Studios. It featured "One Out of Many" a collaboration with proto- rap group The Last Poets. The photo on the cover is the photograph ''Two Gypsies'' by ...
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Y (album)
''Y'' is the debut studio album of English post-punk band The Pop Group. The album was produced by dub musician Dennis "Blackbeard" Bovell at Ridge Farm Studios in Surrey, and was released on 20 April 1979 through Radar Records. It was reissued in 1996 by Radar, 2007 by Rhino/Radar (each with 1-2 bonus tracks from the "She Is Beyond Good and Evil" single), and in 2019 by Mute Records, including deluxe LP/12" and CD editions with bonus outtakes and live albums, to mark its 40th anniversary. ''Y'' initially received mixed critical reviews but has since received acclaim. ''Pitchfork'' ranked it at number 35 on its list of The Top 100 Albums of the 1970s. ''The Wire'' included it in its list of "The 100 Most Important Records Ever Made". Background and recording Inspired by the energy of punk rock but disillusioned by its musical traditionalism, The Pop Group initially set out as funk band, drawing influence from black dance music and radical political traditions. Soon after fo ...
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Post-punk
Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-rock influences. Inspired by punk's energy and DIY ethic but determined to break from rock cliches, artists experimented with styles like funk, electronic music, jazz, and dance music; the production techniques of dub and disco; and ideas from art and politics, including critical theory, modernist art, cinema and literature. These communities produced independent record labels, visual art, multimedia performances and fanzines. The early post-punk vanguard was represented by groups including Siouxsie and the Banshees, Wire, Public Image Ltd, the Pop Group, Cabaret Voltaire, Magazine, Pere Ubu, Joy Division, Talking Heads, Devo, Gang of Four, the Slits, the Cure, and the Fall. The movement was closely related to the development of ...
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Radical Politics
Radical politics denotes the intent to transform or replace the principles of a society or political system, often through social change, structural change, revolution or radical reform. The process of adopting radical views is termed radicalisation. The word derives from the Latin ("root") and Late Latin ("of or pertaining to the root, radical"). Historically, political use of the term referred exclusively to a form of progressivism, progressive electoral reformism, now known as classical radicalism, that had developed in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. However, the denotation has changed since its 18th century coinage to comprehend the entire political spectrum, though retaining the connotation of "change at the root". History The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' traces usage of 'radical' in a political context to 1783. The ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' records the first political usage of 'radical' as ascribed to Charles James Fox, a Whigs (British political par ...
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Free Jazz
Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during this period believed that the bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz that had been played before them was too limiting. They became preoccupied with creating something new and exploring new directions. The term "free jazz" has often been combined with or substituted for the term "avant-garde jazz". Europeans tend to favor the term "free improvisation". Others have used "modern jazz", "creative music", and "art music". The ambiguity of free jazz presents problems of definition. Although it is usually played by small groups or individuals, free jazz big bands have existed. Although musicians and critics claim it is innovative and forward-looking, it draws on early styles of jazz and has been described as an attempt to return to primitive, often re ...
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Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the mid-20th century. It de-emphasizes melody and chord progressions and focuses on a strong rhythmic groove of a bassline played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a percussionist, often at slower tempos than other popular music. Funk typically consists of a complex percussive groove with rhythm instruments playing interlocking grooves that create a "hypnotic" and "danceable" feel. Funk uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths and thirteenths. Funk originated in the mid-1960s, with James Brown's development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with a heavy emphasis on the first bea ...
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Dub Reggae
Dub is an electronic musical style that grew out of reggae in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It is commonly considered a subgenre of reggae, though it has developed to extend beyond that style.Dub: soundscapes and shattered songs in Jamaican reggae, p.2 Generally, dub consists of remixes of existing recordings created by significantly manipulating the original, usually through the removal of vocal parts, the application of studio effects such as echo and reverb, emphasis of the rhythm section (the stripped-down drum-and-bass track is sometimes referred to as a riddim), and the occasional dubbing of vocal or instrumental snippets from the original version or other works.Michael Veal (2013)''Dub: Soundscapes and Shattered Songs in Jamaican Reggae'', pages 26-44, "Electronic Music in Jamaica" Wesleyan University Press Dub was pioneered by Audio engineer, recording engineers and producers such as King Tubby, Osbourne "King Tubby" Ruddock, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Errol Thompson (audi ...
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