The Learn Tracker
...life-long learning: structured, organized, searchable...
920
Lectures Watched
Since January 1, 2014
Hundreds of free, self-paced university courses available:
my recommendations here
Peruse my collection of 275
influential people of the past.
View My Class Notes via:
Receive My Class Notes via E-Mail:

VIEW ARCHIVE

Contact Me via E-Mail:
edward [at] tanguay.info
Notes on video lecture:
Theatrical Rock: KISS, Bowie, and Alice Cooper
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on February 15, 2015 (go to class or lectures)
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
Beatles, live, marketing, mainstream, videos, UK, bombastic, glam, dangerous, pyrotechnics, Stardust, Morrison, Americans, theatrical, stage, development, ambitious, seeing, fictional, bar, death, Detroit, Gothic, kill, progressive, guises, Madonna, androgynous, arenas, Price, Oddity, Genesis
•
theatrical rock
•
sometimes referred to as          rock
•
but glam rock only become popular in the     
•
e.g. David Bowie
•
the U.S. really didn't have a glam movement as you did in the mid 1970s in the UK
•
in this genre, rock music which was conceived primarily for its                      production
•
relied in an important way on you              it to understand it
•
in the 1980s, this happened with music              in that the music was dictated by how the video was produced
•
albums came with elaborate            shows
•
involved performers taking on alternate             
•
taking on various                    characters
•
has its roots in
•
the                Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
•
Jim                  with the Doors and his idea of being the Lizard King
•
make up and costumes used on stage
•
you could include the band               
•
these shows were designed to play not in small theaters but in             
•
forced the                        in the rock concert industry that hadn't been there before
•
David Bowie
•
success in U.S. was later than others in theatrical rock
•
1969 Space             
•
wasn't a hit in the U.S. until 1973 when it was rereleased
•
one of the most important British glamstar performers with                        images
•
challenges gender identity
•
Ziggy                 
•
a fairly androgynous character
•
album was 5 in UK but only 75 in US
•
the question of gender is very much put in the forefront
•
this is what was shocking and                    about what Bowie was doing
•
               in the 80s reproduced much of what Bowie did in questioning gender roles
•
1973 Aladdin Sane
•
1974 Diamond Dogs
•
1975 Young                   
•
hit "Fame"
•
you couldn't get everything from the record, you "had to see the show"
•
Alice Cooper
•
originally from               
•
landed in Los Angeles
•
characterized by gruesome and              stage shows
•
each show ended with Alice Cooper's           
•
the question was always, how do we          Alice Cooper at the end of the show
•
hanged
•
head chopped off
•
electric chair
•
eventually they sort of ran out ways to kill him
•
no one had ever seen this kind of staging
•
a "crazy band of                    desperadoes"
•
1975: Welcome to My Nightmare
•
Vincent            did narrations
•
first records produced by Frank Zappa, influenced by Jim Morrison
•
1971: Love It to Death
•
"I'm Eighteen"
•
1971: Killer
•
"Be My Lover"
•
1972: School's Out
•
Alice Cooper and David Bowie were raising the        in the early 70s for what it meant to do a rock show
•
KISS
•
when it came to theatrical display, there was no group that took the idea and ran with it quite like KISS
•
it was one thing for Alice Cooper to scare you with a guillotine, hanging or electric chair or David Bowie to shock you with this androgyny and European stylishness, but KISS was going to amaze you with the                         
•
they all adopted characters with very heavy makeup
•
a cross between Alice Cooper and the Monkees
•
four individual characters like the Beatles
•
so you could identify with each of them
•
                   stage shows with lights, flames, explosions, costumes, spitting blood, Gene Simmons with that big old tongue of his
•
KISS was a big, sort of scary cartoon with lots of rock and roll fun
•
the first major success comes from a          album
•
after three studio albums
•
1975 Alive!
•
"Rock and Roll All Nite"
•
you had to see them in concert
•
contrast that to a Led Zeppelin album, you didn't have to go to a show to experience it
•
or with Yes
•
KISS exploited the                   
•
feature film
•
action figures
•
theatrical rock was defined by the stage progression
•
KISS was a blues based rock band
•
Alice Cooper was a quasi                        rock
•
David Bowie was more of singer song writer,                      pop
•
was the precursor to music videos in 1980s

Spelling Corrections:

androgenous ⇒ androgynous
androgeny ⇒ androgyny

Ideas and Concepts:

A 1969 classic from the Theatrical Rock genre, via tonight's History of Rock and Roll class: "Space Oddity is a song written and performed by David Bowie and released as a music single in July 1969, just nine days before Apollo 11 landed on the moon. German singer Peter Schilling's 1983 hit "Major Tom (Coming Home)" is written as a retelling of the song. In 2013, Bowie's Space Oddity gained renewed popularity after it was covered by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who performed the song while aboard the International Space Station, and therefore became the first music video shot in space."
From the androgynous glamstar department, via tonight's History of Rock and Roll class: "David Bowie was one of the most important British glamstar performers to challenge gender identity. With his Ziggy Stardust venture, he questioned the core belief of rock music of his day and created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture. Dressed in a striking costume, his hair dyed red, Bowie launched his Ziggy Stardust stage show with the Spiders from Mars on February 10, 1972. The show was hugely popular, catapulting him to stardom as he toured the UK over the course of the next six months and creating a "cult of Bowie" that was truly unique, its influence lasting longer and its originality more creative than perhaps any other personality within pop fandom history. Bowie's love of acting led his total immersion in the characters he created for his music:"Offstage I'm a robot. Onstage I achieve emotion. It's probably why I prefer dressing up as Ziggy to being David."
1970s: Hippie Aesthetic, Corporate Rock, Disco, and Punk
British Blues-Based Bands and the Roots of Heavy Metal
American Blues Rock and Southern Rock
The Era of Progressive Rock
Jazz Rock in the 70s
Theatrical Rock: KISS, Bowie, and Alice Cooper
American Singer-Songwriters of the 70s
British and Canadian Singer-Songwriters
Country Rock's Influence on 1970s Music
Black Pop in the 1970s
Sly Stone and His Influence on Black Pop, Funk, and Psychedelic Soul
Motown in the 1970s
Philadelphia Sound and Soul Train
Blaxploitation Soundtracks
The Uniqueness of James Brown
Bob Marley and the Rise of Reggae
The Backlash Against Disco
1975-1980: The Rise of the Mega-Αlbum
Continuity Bands in the 1970s
Rock and Roll in the Second Half of the 1970s
U.S. Punk 1967-1975
1974-77: Punk in the UK
American New Wave 1977-80
British New Wave 1977-80
The Hippie Aesthetic: 1966-1980
The Rise of MTV
Michael Jackson: MTV's Unexpected Boon
Madonna as Disruptive Shock Artist
Prince and Janet Jackson
Other Groups Who Benefited from MTV
1980s New Traditionalists and New Wave
1980s New Acts, Old Styles and Blue-Eyed Soul
1970s Progressive Rock Adapts to the 80s
1980's Heavy Metal
1980s Heavy Metal and L.A. Hair Bands
1980s Ambitious Heavy Metal
The Beginning of Rap
1980s: Rap Crosses Over to Mainstream
Late 1980s Hard Core Rap
Punk Goes Hardcore
Late 80s Indie Rock Underground
1990s: The Rise of Alternative Rock
1990s Indie Rock and the Question of Selling Out
1990s Metal and Alternative Extensions
Hip-Hop in the 1990s
Classic Rock of the 1990s
1990s Jam Bands and Britpop
Female Singer-Songwriters of the 1990s
The Rise of Teen Idols in the 1990s
1990s Dance Music