Electro, Break Beat

Both electro and break beat are musics that seem contemporary but which find their origins in quite old rhythms. Nowadays, these musics are widespread, developing throughout the world at high speed and seducing more and more amateurs.

The Electro

Electro would have been born in the early 80s with the arrival of the MIDI system which allowed several instruments to communicate with each other through a computer.

Electro is a revolution in the world of music, after the apogee of rock, disco and music.

Electro covers different movements such as Techno, Ambient, House, etc. It is characterized by a sound that makes use of drum machines, synthesizers, computers and sound samples. Here violins, fire sirens, an Indian sitar, a transformed opera diva path rub shoulders with each other.

We find many international artists from the electro scene such as Daft Punk, Massive Attack, Prodigy, Bob Sinclar, Chemical Brothers, etc.

The electro is immediately recognizable because it reminds us of a heartbeat that makes us want to dance.

The Break Beat

This movement is recognized by its syncopated binary rhythm and the strong use of so-called broken rhythms. The Break beat is opposed to all the other subgenres of electro that have a more regular rhythm.

In Break beat, we distort the sound, we use samples that we integrate with other rhythms.

It’s a genre that is freely inspired by funk.

In Break beat, we recognize the following movements: hip hop, trip Hop and Drum & Bass for example. It is a style that is recognizable by the use of bass on quite lively and lively rhythms.

The main representatives are the Stanton Warriors, Plump Dj’s, Gramatik who transforms jazzy ballads, Mr Troy, C2C that we no longer present and Flume.

Rock, Pop Rock

More and more, rock and Pop rock tend to merge because they have common bases, both come from the Blues and have the vocation to release an energy such that we always want to dance.

Rock’n’ roll

Do we still need to present rock? It is a fairly mixed musical style that is inspired by Blues, of course, but also by jazz, folk and country music.

Commonly, rock can be summarily reduced to the presence of electric guitars, drums and sometimes a keyboard, one or more voices. The whole thing is then placed on a rather rhythmic binary rhythm, which will immediately differentiate it from jazz, or other more marked music.

Rock is also a very rich history born in the late 40s and early 50s and which saw precursors such as Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry launch this musical movement. Rock, then, met other movements like Pop with the Beatles, but also folk with Bob Dylan, psychedelic with Pink Floyd or what was then called hard rock with Led Zeppelin or Deep Purple.

Today, rock has a multiple face and the genre has developed widely and has evolved at an impressive rate, from britpop (Blur, Oasis), grunge with Nirvana or a more mixed rock with Muse or Green Day.

Pop Rock

It is a genre that has met with phenomenal and automatic success among teenagers.

It is above all a genre that exploded in the early 2000s: popular music intended for a wide audience, a kind of democratized rock for all.

The most representative artists of this glorious period are: Placebo and their famous title “The bitter end”, MUSE and the song “Time is running out”, The Rasmus and the title “In the Shadows”, Linkin Park and the title “Numb”, The White Stripes with “Seven nations army” or The Strokes with “The end has no end”.

In France, Kyo, Calogero and even Indochina stand out thanks to this style.

Pop, Easy Listening

Pop music is a musical genre that has spread widely in our society, so it is a rock-like genre that seeks to target teenagers who are in search of identity.

With pop, they find themselves in the same clubs, have the same language, the same dress codes.

It is estimated that pop is the equivalent of variety in France.

Easy listening is similar to pop music because it is also close to people, a music that can be heard everywhere and that everyone (young, old, working, grandparents, etc.) can listen together without disturbance.

The Pop

Pop music appeared in the 60s when traditional rock began to falter slightly. It was the advent of the Beatles who totally installed this genre in the musical charts of the time.

Pop is a cooler, more romantic, more melancholic version of rock and is characterized by vocals and melodies.

Singers often evoke their feelings but also the relationships between men and women.

Pop is also music that integrates with dance, dress style and famous music videos. To reach a large number of people, pop music must be broadcast on most radio stations; thus, its structure changes for the widest possible listening: rhythm close to the human heart, song duration of 3 minutes, a slower flow and a systematic refrain-couplet alternation.

Among the representatives of the genre are the Beach Boys, but more recently Shakira, Britney Spears, Depeche Mode, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Coldplay or Lady Gaga.

Easy Listening

Easy listening brings together fairly simple yet catchy melodies: they are soft, melodious songs with ballroom dance rhythms.

Often, easy listening is compared to background music, also called elevator music in a pejorative way, as if it could only be heard in the background.

The known artists of this musical style are: Burt Bacharah, Perry Como, and more recently Pink Martini and Jay Jay Johnson.

Ambient

The Ambient genre is quite difficult to determine; we know that it is a rather “light” variant of the electro genre.

It was the singer and composer Brian Eno who first coined the term to define his music, a kind of background music, a music that we listen to in the background. We discover that there is almost no beat and that the slicks are predominant.

A Singular Term

Ambient music is a term that was used and still refers to a specific moment in electronic music, namely the 1970s. However, at that time, not everything was instrumental contrary to what one might think and not everything was necessarily electronic; when you listen to Pink Floyd, Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream or Harold Budd, the examples multiply.

The Ambient in the 90′ Range

While techno and house are raging in the various clubs and raves, a new wave of composers is seizing Ambient music to try acoustic experiments. The music of groups such as The Orb, The Future Sound of London and then Aphex Twin or Squarepusher revive a little with the psychedelic movement and the somewhat vaporous ambiances of the 70s.

But it is the aesthetics and research in terms of percussion and atmospheres that shape the new face of Ambient music.

The 2000s

Ambient music then underwent a transformation thanks to the arrival of new artists but especially with the appearance of software that would come to process sound in a digital way. While the press refers to the term “electronica” to define it, Ambient remains a minimalist genre with very advanced sound research, especially in terms of texture.

Ambient is a music considered intellectual where each artist explores an aesthetic by working with the listener’s perceptions of each sound.