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Noise rock

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Noise rock is a broadly defined musical genre that developed in the 1980s as an experimental outgrowth of punk rock. Fusing punk rock's attitude with the atonal noise and unconventional song structures of early industrial and noise music, the noise rock introduced a new kind of avant-garde music to the alternative rock landscape. The style is sometimes referred to as "noisecore", though this term can also refer to a variety of fast, distorted hardcore techno music and grindcore.

History

Some influences on the early breed of noise rockers were the stark rock and roll of The Velvet Underground (most notably their White Light/White Heat album), the bluster of the Stooges, San Francisco's Fifty Foot Hose, Japan's Les Rallizes Denudes, the most expressive examples of krautrock (such bands as Faust), the chaotic free jazz and freak-rock released on the ESP Disk label and Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music.

The 1980s saw a large amount of noise rock bands to emerge from different scenes in America, notably The Jesus Lizard and Big Black (Chicago), Butthole Surfers and Scratch Acid (Texas), Sonic Youth and Swans (New York), among many others, including The Cows (Minneapolis), Flipper (San Francisco). Also of note during this era (particularly the early 1980s) is the emergence of No Wave from New York City, a backlash against the New Wave trend of the time.

Later, the sound became associated with Japanese artists such as Boredoms and Melt-Banana, who incorporated the influences from Japanese noise music even further, and occasionally adopted completely chaotic structures creating extremely short, fast "songs" which were marked by blasts of rhythm (perhaps reflecting an influence from grindcore), screaming, and extremely overloaded guitars. Some bands even draw influences from black metal music which incorporates a lot of tremolo.

At around the same time, bands such as Gore Beyond Necropsy and Anal Cunt were developing a similar style which is also often referred to as noisecore or noisegrind. In many cases, although the backgrounds of the bands are different, the "art" influenced noise rock bands and grindcore bands have often collaborated on new music.

Time line of notable noise rock performers

This time line shows some of the most notable noise rock artists.

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 from:1977 till:1979 color:now text:Theoretical girls (Glenn Branca)
 from:1978 till:1982 color:now text:DNA
 from:1977 till:2008 color:now text:Half Japanese
 from:1979 till:2008 color:noi text:The Ex
 from:1979  till:1987 color:noi text:Flipper
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 from:1980 till:2008 color:har text:Merzbow
 from:1981 till:1984 color:now text:Birthday Party
 from:1982 till:1984 color:now text:Swans until Young God (EP)
 from:1982 till:1987 color:noi text:Big Black
 from:1982 till:2008 color:noi text:Butthole Surfers
 from:1983 till:1996 color:noi text:Killdozer
 from:1983 till:2008 color:noi text:Sonic Youth
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 from:1986 till:2008 color:noi text:Boredoms
 from:1987 till:1989 color:noi text:Rapeman
 from:1987 till:1998 color:mat text:The Jesus Lizard
 from:1989 till:1992 color:mat text:Slint
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 from:2005 till:2008 color:mat text:Slint
 from:1989 till:1992 color:noi text:[Naked City (band)|Naked City]]
 from:1990 till:1995 color:mat text:Drive Like Jehu
 from:1990 till:1998 color:mat text:Polvo
 from:1991 till:2002 color:noi text:Unwound
 from:1992 till:2008 color:mat text:Shellac
 from:1992 till:2008 color:har text:Melt Banana
from:1995 till:2008 color:har text:The Locust
 from:1995 till:2008 color:noi text:Deerhoof
 from:1996 till:2008 color:now text:Neptune
from:1996 till:2008 color:har text:Lightning Bolt
 from:1996 till:2008 color:har text:Wolf Eyes
 from:1997 till:2008 color:har text:Black Dice
 from:1999 till:2005 color:noi text:Mclusky
 from:1999 till:2008 color:noi text:The Intelligence
 from:2001 till:2008 color:noi text:Erase Errata
 from:2001 till:2008 color:noi text:Test Icicles

Other bands not listed in the time line

The following is a list of notable noise rock bands.

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

Labels

The following is a list of record labels that specialize in noise rock.

See also

External links



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Last updated on Wednesday March 12, 2008 at 03:42:26 PDT (GMT -0700)
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