Cities don’t get a songwriting credit or a royalty cheque. But from grunge in Seattle’s garages to hip-hop in New York’s community centres, urban design has profoundly influenced musical genres across the world
Most modern music is an urban animal. Cities regularly birth music scenes, and artists often claim to be inspired by “the streets”, or by their neighbourhood. Yet the actual link between the music they make and the built environment where they do so is generally underplayed – spoken about as a matter of mood, or a source of lyrics. Music historians generally cite a critical mass of musicians as being crucial to the birth of a scene: classical composers in 18th century Vienna, for example, or modern metal bands in Helsinki. But the city itself? Well that’s mainly just credited as a convenient place for the musicians to hang out – though David Bowie’s residency in Berlin, for one, took that relationship to particularly intimate levels.
But what if a city’s role isn’t quite so one-note? Washington Post journalist David Maraniss became obsessed with that question, particularly in respect to Motown. “I was fascinated by the idea of why the musical magic happened in Detroit,” he says. “What is it about some cities and civilisations that bring about these creative bursts?”
The garage helped to reinforce the rawness and the energy of the music
When you record a group of musicians, you’re not only recording the music, you’re recording the environment
Related: The slow death of music venues in cities
Continue reading...by Ian Wylie via Electronic music | The Guardian
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