Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangs was an American music journalist, critic, author, and musician. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone magazines, and was known for his leading influence in rock music criticism. The music critic Jim DeRogatis called him "America's greatest rock critic".
Synth-pop is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic, art rock, disco, and particularly the Krautrock of bands like Kraftwerk. It arose as a distinct genre in Japan and the United Kingdom in the post-punk era as part of the new wave movement of the late 1970s to the mid-1980s.
Indie rock is a genre of rock music that originated in the United States and United Kingdom in the 1970s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produced and was initially used interchangeably with alternative rock or "guitar pop rock". In the 1980s, the use of the term "indie" started to shift from its reference to recording companies to describe the style of music produced on punk and post-punk labels. During the 1990s, grunge and punk revival bands in the US and Britpop bands in the UK broke into the mainstream, and the term "alternative" lost its original counter-cultural meaning. The term "indie rock" became associated with the bands and genres that remained dedicated to their independent status. By the end of the 1990s, indie rock developed several subgenres and related styles, including lo-fi, noise pop, emo, slowcore, post-rock, and math rock. In the 2000s, changes in the music industry and a growing importance of the internet enabled a new wave of indie rock bands to achieve mainstream success, leading to questions about its meaningfulness as a term.
Alternative rock is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commercial rock or pop music. The term's original meaning was broader, referring to a generation of musicians unified by their collective debt to either the musical style or simply the independent, DIY ethos of punk rock, which in the late 1970s laid the groundwork for alternative music.
Shoegaze is a subgenre of indie and alternative rock characterized by its ethereal mixture of obscured vocals, guitar distortion and effects, feedback, and overwhelming volume. It emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1980s among neo-psychedelic groups who stood motionless during live performances in a detached, non-confrontational state with their heads down. This was because the heavy use of effects pedals meant the performers were often looking down at their pedals during concerts.
Math rock is a style of progressive and indie rock with roots in bands such as King Crimson and Rush as well as 20th-century minimal music composers such as Steve Reich. It is characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures, counterpoint, odd time signatures, angular melodies, and extended, often dissonant, chords. It bears similarities to post-rock.
This article is an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 2000s.
Noise rock is a noise-oriented style of experimental rock that spun off from punk rock in the 1980s. Drawing on movements such as minimalism, industrial music, and New York hardcore, artists indulge in extreme levels of distortion through the use of electric guitars and, less frequently, electronic instrumentation, either to provide percussive sounds or to contribute to the overall arrangement.
Infected Mushroom is an Israeli musical duo formed in Haifa in 1996 by producers Erez Eisen and Amit Duvdevani. They produce and perform psytrance, electronica, dream trance and psychedelic music. They are one of the best-selling groups in Israeli music history in terms of both domestic and international sales.
Metric is a Canadian rock band founded in 1998 in Toronto, Ontario. The band consists of Emily Haines, James Shaw, Joshua Winstead and Joules Scott-Key. The band started in 1998 as a duo formed by Haines and Shaw with the name "Mainstream". After releasing an EP titled Mainstream EP, they changed the band's name to Metric.
Pinoy rock, or Filipino rock, is the brand of rock music produced in the Philippines or by Filipinos. It has become as diverse as the rock music genre itself, and bands adopting this style are now further classified under more specific genres or combinations of genres like alternative rock, post-grunge, ethnic, new wave, pop rock, punk rock, funk, reggae, heavy metal, ska, and recently, indie. Because these genres are generally considered to fall under the broad rock music category, Pinoy rock may be more specifically defined as rock music with Filipino cultural sensibilities.
Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? is the first studio album by Canadian indie rock band Metric. The album was released on September 2, 2003, on Enjoy Records and Last Gang Records in Canada and went gold in Canada. It was produced by Michael Andrews, recorded at Elgonix Labs, Los Angeles, and mixed at Sonora Recordings.
Punk blues is a rock music genre that mixes elements of punk rock and blues. Punk blues musicians and bands usually incorporate elements of related styles, such as protopunk and blues rock. Its origins lie strongly within the garage rock sound of the 1960s and 1970s.
Emily Savitri Haines is a Canadian singer and songwriter. She is the lead singer, keyboardist and songwriter of the rock band Metric and a member of Broken Social Scene. As a solo artist, she has performed under her own name and under the moniker Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton. Haines has a soprano voice, but generally sings in lower ranges.
Post-punk revival, also known as garage rock revival, new wave revival, and new rock revolution is a genre of indie rock that developed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, inspired by the original sounds and aesthetics of garage rock of the 1960s and new wave and post-punk of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Live It Out is the second album released by the Canadian indie rock band Metric. It was released on September 27, 2005, on Last Gang Records. The album has sold 45,000 copies in the US, and went platinum in Canada selling 100,000 units.
An independent music scene is a localized independent music-oriented community of bands and their audiences. Local scenes can play a key role in musical history and lead to the development of influential genres; for example, No Wave from New York City, Madchester from Manchester, and Grunge from Seattle.
Astreal are an indie rock band, most often associated with the genres of post rock, shoegazing, and noise pop.
Mainstream is an early demo EP from Canadian indie rock band Metric. The album is currently not available in stores, although it is circulated widely on the internet. It was revealed in the 2009 book This Book is Broken, that the band was called "Mainstream" at this time, not "Metric", and Joshua Winstead and Joules Scott-Key had not yet joined.
Joshua "Josh" Winstead is an American songwriter and musician. He is the bassist and synth player of the Canadian indie rock band Metric. On June 3, 2016 he released his debut solo album MMXX on his own label Royal Cut Records.
