Curated playlist
1980s in music
- House musicFrankie Knuckles began splicing records because the music ran out before dancers wanted to stop.
- Punk rockDetroit band Death couldn't get a record deal because of its name. They issued one single in 1976, then disbanded.
- Gangsta rapGangsta rap first went by a different name: reality rap. Schoolly D and Ice-T said they described a world they knew.
- Rap metalIn 1987, Anthrax became one of the earliest bands to deliberately mix hip hop and heavy metal.
- EmoAt Rites of Spring shows in the mid-1980s, audience members sometimes wept.
- New wave musicMTV filled its early hours with British new wave because most American hits had no videos.
- Contemporary R&BIn 2004, all twelve Billboard Hot 100 number-one songs came from African-American artists.
- FunkJames Brown told his band to hit the first beat hardest. Funk began in African-American communities in the mid-1960s.
- Electronic dance musicGhost production means a hired producer makes a track that a DJ releases under their own name.
- Country musicThe steel guitar in country music traces back to Hawaii, not Appalachia. Country's sound was a braid of many traditions.
- Kino (band)Kino sold two million copies of an album the band despised. Their producer had released Noch without their consent.
- J-popJapan once argued over whether rock music could be sung in Japanese. The band Happy End proved it could.