1970

• Armadillo World Headquarters
  Armadillo World Headquarters
  The Armadillo World Headquarters was the premier music hall and entertainment center in Austin, Texas, United States from 1970 to 1980.-History:...
  
   opens in Austin, Texas
  Austin, Texas
  Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
  
  . It will become a major venue for the music of Austin
  Music of Austin
  The music of Austin, Texas, USA has gone beyond 6th Street and now includes other areas such as Red River, the University of Texas, the Warehouse District and Downtown, South Lamar, South Austin, East Austin and the Market District where bars and clubs of every kind can be found. Every night over...
  
  , especially the local country scene.
• Black Sabbath
  Black Sabbath
  Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
  
  's Black Sabbath
  Black Sabbath (album)
  Black Sabbath is the debut studio album by English heavy metal band Black Sabbath. Released on 13 February 1970 in the United Kingdom, and later on 1 June 1970 in the United States, the album reached number eight on the UK Albums Chart and has been recognised as the first main album to be credited...
  
   and Paranoid
  Paranoid (album)
  Paranoid is the second studio album by English heavy metal band Black Sabbath. Released in September 1970, the album was the only one by the band to top the UK Albums Chart, and as a result is commonly identified as the band's magnum opus...
  
   codify the genre later known as heavy metal music
  Heavy metal music
  Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
  
  ; though Black Sabbath is British, heavy metal will become an important American phenomenon in the next decade.
• Charlie Gillett
  Charlie Gillett
  Charlie Gillett , was a British radio presenter, musicologist and writer, mainly on rock and roll and other forms of popular music...
  
  's The Sound of the City is the first comprehensive history of R&B and rock.
• Growing Latino "political unrest and cultural awakening" manifests in musical expression, especially in the formation of a group called El Chicano
  El Chicano
  El Chicano is an American chicano rock and brown-eyed soul group from Los Angeles, California, whose style incorporates various modern music genres including rock, funk, soul, blues, jazz, and salsa...
  
  , who had a major hit with "Viva Tirado". "Viva Tirado" becomes the "first single to attain positions in all popular music categories except country and western".
• Francis Grasso
  Francis Grasso
  Francis Grasso ) was an American disc jockey from New York City, best known for inventing the technique of slip-cueing and later beatmatching which is the foundation of the modern club DJ's technique.Grasso started his DJ career in 1967 at a New York nightclub called Salvation II...
  
   opens the Sanctuary, the first "notoriously gay discothèque" in the country in the New York club scene; he innovates a technique called disco blending, which allows for uninterrupted dancing, laying the groundwork for disco music.
• Miles Davis
  Miles Davis
  Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
  
  ' Bitches Brew
  Bitches Brew
  Bitches Brew is a studio double album by jazz musician Miles Davis, released in April 1970 on Columbia Records. The album continued his experimentation with electric instruments previously featured on his critically acclaimed In a Silent Way album...
  
   is an important part of the origin of jazz-rock.
• Haitian performers with mini-djaz bands touring the United States begin deserting to settle in Miami and other cities, establishing a number of local Haitian music scenes.
• Nosotros, a Hollywood trade association for Latino entertainers, inaugurates what will become known as the Golden Eagle Awards, for Latino musicians.
• The works of Scott Joplin
  Scott Joplin
  Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions, and was later dubbed "The King of Ragtime". During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas...
  
   become the basis for a ragtime
  Ragtime
  Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
  
   revival, inspired in large part by The Complete Piano Works of Scott Joplin, a recording by John W. Parker, and Scott Joplin: Piano Rags
  Scott Joplin: Piano Rags
  Scott Joplin: Piano Rags is a 1970 ragtime piano album, consisting of compositions by Scott Joplin played by Joshua Rifkin, on the Nonesuch Records label. The album cover states the name as Piano Rags by Scott Joplin. The record is considered to have been the first to reintroduce the music of...
  
  , a recording by Joshua Rifkin
  Joshua Rifkin
  Joshua Rifkin is an American conductor, keyboard player, and musicologist. He is best known by the general public for having played a central role in the ragtime revival in the 1970s with the three albums he recorded of Scott Joplin's works for Nonesuch Records, and to classical musicians for his...
  
  . Eubie Blake
  Eubie Blake
  James Hubert Blake was an American composer, lyricist, and pianist of ragtime, jazz, and popular music. In 1921, Blake and long-time collaborator Noble Sissle wrote the Broadway musical Shuffle Along, one of the first Broadway musicals to be written and directed by African Americans...
  
   becomes the only ragtime pianist to ever record one of his own pieces, "Charleston Rag" (written in 1921).
• The case Sinatra v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., though ultimately unsuccessful, contends for the first time that the use of a performer to imitate a different performer - in this case, Nancy Sinatra
  Nancy Sinatra
  Nancy Sandra Sinatra is an American singer and actress. She is the daughter of singer/actor Frank Sinatra, and remains best known for her 1966 signature hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'"....
  
   - could constitute the tort of passing off
  Passing off
  Passing off is a common law tort which can be used to enforce unregistered trademark rights. The tort of passing off protects the goodwill of a trader from a misrepresentation that causes damage to goodwill....
  
  .
• Jamaican musician U-Roy
  U-Roy
  U-Roy , OD, is a Jamaican musician, also known as The Originator. He is best known as a pioneer of toasting.-Biography:...
  
   becomes the first to record rhythmic speech over dubs
  Dub music
  Dub is a genre of music which grew out of reggae music in the 1960s, and is commonly considered a subgenre, though it has developed to extend beyond the scope of reggae...
  
  , which is the direct ancestor of rapping
  Rapping
  Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
  
  , one of the elements of hip hop culture.
• Louis Wayne Ballard becomes the Director of Music Programs for the Bureau of Indian Affairs
  Bureau of Indian Affairs
  The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...
  
  . He will be the first Native American to create educational materials on Native American music
  Native American music
  American Indian music is the music that is used, created or performed by Native North Americans, specifically traditional tribal music. In addition to the traditional music of the Native American groups, there now exist pan-tribal and inter-tribal genres as well as distinct Indian subgenres of...
  
  .
• The Stooges
  The Stooges
  The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...
  
   begin performing, becoming known for making physical contact with the crowd, one of the reasons they are considered an important predecessor of punk rock
  Punk rock
  Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
  
   and hardcore
  Hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
  
  .
• The first digital synthesizer
  Synthesizer
  A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
  
  s are created.

1971

1972

• American copyright
  Copyright
  Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
  
   law is amended to required recorded materials be archived with the Library of Congress
  Library of Congress
  The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
  
  .
• British singer David Bowie
  David Bowie
  David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
  
   brings his Ziggy Stardust
  Ziggy Stardust Tour
  The Ziggy Stardust Tour was a concert tour by David Bowie in United Kingdom, North America, and Japan in 1972-73, to promote the studio albums Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane.-The band:*David Bowie - vocals, guitar, harmonica...
  
   tour to the United States. Despite his popularity in the British counterculture, he is greeted with skepticism and indifference, indicating that the "global youth culture created by the Beatles, and ratified at the Monterey Pop Festival
  Monterey Pop Festival
  The Monterey International Pop Music Festival was a three-day concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California...
  
  , was already beginning to fall apart".
• The movie Deliverance
  Deliverance
  Deliverance is a 1972 American thriller film produced and directed by John Boorman. Principal cast members include Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty in his film debut. The film is based on a 1970 novel of the same name by American author James Dickey, who has a small role in the...
  
   inspires a resurgence of interest in old time and American folk music
  American folk music
  American folk music is a musical term that encompasses numerous genres, many of which are known as traditional music or roots music. Roots music is a broad category of music including bluegrass, country music, gospel, old time music, jug bands, Appalachian folk, blues, Cajun and Native American...
  
  , especially the banjo
  Banjo
  In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
  
  .
• Jimmy Cliff
  Jimmy Cliff
  Jimmy Cliff, OM is a Jamaican musician, singer and actor. He is the only currently living musician to hold the Order of Merit, the highest honour that can be granted by the Jamaican government for achievement in the arts and sciences...
  
  , one of the earliest Jamaican reggae
  Reggae
  Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...
  
   singers to find success in the United States, reaches mainstream audiences with the movie The Harder They Come
  The Harder They Come
  The Harder They Come is a 1972 Jamaican crime film directed by Perry Henzell.The film stars reggae singer Jimmy Cliff, who plays Ivanhoe Martin, a character based on Rhyging, a real-life Jamaican criminal who achieved fame in the 1940s...
  
  . The music from the movie spread awareness of Jamaican rock and reggae. Bob Marley
  Bob Marley
  Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers...
  
  's Catch a Fire
  Catch a Fire
  Catch a Fire is the major-label-debut album for Jamaican reggae band The Wailers, released on Island Records on 13 April 1973. The album established the band as international superstars. Leader Bob Marley in particular became world-famous...
  
   also establishes his international career and sets the stage for becoming a major American rock icon.
• Myrrh Records
  Myrrh Records
  Myrrh Records, also known as Myrrh Worship, is a Christian music record label. According to Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music, the label was instrumental in developing a popular following for Contemporary Christian music as the label that first published music by Barry McGuire, 2nd Chapter of...
  
   becomes the first Christian rock
  Christian rock
  Christian rock is a form of rock music played by individuals and bands whose members are Christians and who often focus the lyrics on matters concerned with the Christian faith. The extent to which their lyrics are explicitly Christian varies between bands...
  
   record label
  Record label
  In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
  
  .
• The earliest "rap
  Rapping
  Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
  
   musical events" are said to have been held in the Bronx.
• The first four-track tape recorder intended for nonprofessional use is released.
• "We Shall Overcome
  We Shall Overcome
  "We Shall Overcome" is a protest song that became a key anthem of the African-American Civil Rights Movement . The title and structure of the song are derived from an early gospel song by African-American composer Charles Albert Tindley...
  
  ", a hymn
  Hymn
  A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
  
  -turned civil rights
  Civil rights
  Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
  
   protest song
  Protest song
  A protest song is a song which is associated with a movement for social change and hence part of the broader category of topical songs . It may be folk, classical, or commercial in genre...
  
   becomes "a rallying cry, sung weekly at processions organized to mobilize the community in its fight against drugs".
• Elmhurst College
  Elmhurst College
  Elmhurst College is a comprehensive private liberal arts college in Elmhurst, Illinois with a tradition of service-oriented learning. It has a rich affiliation with the United Church of Christ.- History :‎...
  
   inaugurates a nearly unique academic program, specializing in the music business.
• The Keystone Korner, one of the most important and longest-lasting jazz clubs in San Francisco, opens.

1973

• The film American Graffiti
  American Graffiti
  American Graffiti is a 1973 coming of age film co-written/directed by George Lucas starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips and Harrison Ford...
  
   is released. It is the "first Hollywood blockbuster about rock and roll".
• Augusto Pinochet
  Augusto Pinochet
  Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
  
  's coup in Chile inspires musicians both in South America and the United States to form pan-Andean ensembles consisting of bombo drums, the quirqincho and charango
  Charango
  The charango is a small Andean stringed instrument of the lute family, 66 cm long, traditionally made with the shell of the back of an armadillo. Primarily played in traditional Andean music, and is sometimes used by other Latin American musicians. Many contemporary charangos are now made with...
  
   quitars, the quena
  Quena
  The quena is the traditional flute of the Andes. Usually made of bamboo or wood, it has 6 finger holes and one thumb hole and is open on both ends. To produce sound, the player closes the top end of the pipe with the flesh between his chin and lower lip, and blows a stream of air downward, along...
  
   flute and the zampoña panpipes.
• Billboard
  Billboard (magazine)
  Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
  
   coins the term disco to describe a genre; this year, Manu Dibango
  Manu Dibango
  -External links:*...
  
  's "Soul Makossa
  Soul Makossa
  "Soul Makossa" is a 1972 single by Cameroonian makossa saxophonist Manu Dibango. It is often cited as one of the first disco records. In 1972 David Mancuso found a copy in a Brooklyn West Indian record store and often played it at his Loft parties. The response was so positive that the few copies...
  
  " becomes the first disco hit.
• DJ Kool Herc
  DJ Kool Herc
  Clive Campbell , also known as Kool Herc, DJ Kool Herc and Kool DJ Herc, is a Jamaican-born DJ who is credited with originating hip hop music, in The Bronx, New York City...
  
  , known as the "Father of Hip Hop", begins providing music for parties, going on to spur the development of hip hop music
  Hip hop music
  Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
  
  .
• A film version of The Fiddler on the Roof helps inspire a resurgence of interest in tradition Jewish music
  Jewish music
  Jewish music is the music and melodies of the Jewish People which have evolved over time throughout the long course of Jewish History. In some instances Jewish Music is of a religious nature, spiritual songs and refrains are common in Jewish Services throughout the world, while other times, it is...
  
  .
• Olivia Records
  Olivia Records
  Olivia Records was a collective founded in 1973 to record and market women's music. Olivia, named after the heroine of a pulp novel by Dorothy Bussy who fell in love with her headmistress at French boarding school, was the brainchild of ten lesbian-feminists living in Washington, DC who wanted to...
  
  , the first record label run entirely by women, is formed. The same year, the first women's music
  Women's music
  Women's music is the music by women, for women, and about women . The genre emerged as a musical expression of the second-wave feminist movement as well as the labor, civil rights, and peace movements...
  
   festival is held at Sacramento State University.
• One of the most successful groups to come out of the mid-20th century East Los Angeles music scene, Tierra, forms and records their first album, Tierra
  Tierra (album)
  Tierra is the second album released by L'Arc-en-Ciel on July 14, 1994.-Track listing:-Personnel:* hyde – vocals* ken – guitar* tetsu – bass* sakura – drums, percussion* Haruo Togashi – keyboards* Kuni Tanaka – saxophone...
  
  , an innovative work that fused elements of both Mexican and American popular music.
• The soundtrack to The Sting
  The Sting
  The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
  
   helps lead to a resurgence of interest in ragtime
  Ragtime
  Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
  
  . This year will also see Gunther Schuller
  Gunther Schuller
  Gunther Schuller is an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, and jazz musician.- Biography and works :...
  
   produce a performance of Scott Joplin
  Scott Joplin
  Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions, and was later dubbed "The King of Ragtime". During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas...
  
  's opera Treemonisha
  Treemonisha
  Treemonisha is an opera composed by the famed African-American ragtime composer Scott Joplin. Though it encompasses a wide range of musical styles other than ragtime, and Joplin did not refer to it as such, it is sometimes incorrectly referred to as a "ragtime opera"...
  
  , and the following year will see Joshua Rifkin
  Joshua Rifkin
  Joshua Rifkin is an American conductor, keyboard player, and musicologist. He is best known by the general public for having played a central role in the ragtime revival in the 1970s with the three albums he recorded of Scott Joplin's works for Nonesuch Records, and to classical musicians for his...
  
  's three ragtime albums chart.

1974

• Gloria Gaynor
  Gloria Gaynor
  Gloria Gaynor is an American singer, best known for the disco era hits; "I Will Survive" , "Never Can Say Goodbye" , "Let Me Know " and "I Am What I Am" .-Early career:Gaynor was a singer with the Soul...
  
  's "Never Can Say Goodbye
  Never Can Say Goodbye
  "Never Can Say Goodbye" is a song written by Clifton Davis and originally recorded by The Jackson 5. Released as a single in 1971, it was one of the group's most successful songs...
  
  " is the first "disco hit to reach the charts".
• The National Endowment for the Arts
  National Endowment for the Arts
  The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
  
   creates a subcategory within its music program for "Jazz/Folk/Ethnic Music"; though jazz had previously been supported by the NEA, this is the first support for folk music.
• The military establishes the Bicentennial Band, which will tour across the United States over the next few years in celebration of the country's bicentennial anniversary.
• The case Schroeder v. Macaulay is a key ruling on the enforceability of music publishing agreements. Among the consequences of the case is the reversion of unused material to the ownership of the author.

1975

• Alex Haley
  Alex Haley
  Alexander Murray Palmer Haley was an African-American writer. He is best known as the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and the coauthor of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.-Early life:...
  
  's Roots is broadcast as a television miniseries
  Miniseries
  A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...
  
  , inspiring a rekindling of interest among African Americans of their traditional music and culture. It also helps to inspire similar roots revival
  Roots revival
  A roots revival is a trend which includes young performers popularizing the traditional musical styles of their ancestors. Often, roots revivals include an addition of newly-composed songs with socially and politically aware lyrics, as well as a general modernization of the folk sound.After an...
  
  s, a trend which will be intensified with the Bicentennial celebration the following year.
• Bruce Springsteen
  Bruce Springsteen
  Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
  
   breaks into mainstream audiences with Born to Run
  Born to Run
  The album's release was accompanied by a $250,000 promotional campaign by Columbia directed at both consumers and the music industry, making good use of Landau's "I saw rock 'n' roll's future—and its name is Bruce Springsteen" quote. With much publicity, Born to Run vaulted into the top 10 in its...
  
  , becoming "widely hailed as a rock and roll Messiah".
• Funk
  Funk
  Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
  
   albums by Kool & the Gang
  Kool & the Gang
  Kool & the Gang are an American jazz, R&B, soul, and funk group, originally formed as the Jazziacs in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1964.They went through several musical phases during the course of their recording career, starting out with a purist jazz sound, then becoming practitioners of R&B and...
  
   (Spirit of the Boogie
  Spirit of the Boogie
  -Reception:Spirit of the Boogie is the highly successful eighth studio album released in 1975 by Kool & the Gang. It can be seen as a follow-up to Wild and Peaceful ; The instrumental "Jungle Jazz" uses the same basic rhythm track heard in "Jungle Boogie", but lets the players improvise on their...
  
  ) and Earth, Wind & Fire
  Earth, Wind & Fire
  Earth, Wind & Fire is an American soul and R&B band formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1969 by Verdine and Maurice White. Also known as EWF, the band has won six Grammy Awards and four American Music Awards. They have been inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Vocal Group Hall of...
  
   (That's the Way of the World
  That's the Way of the World
  -1999 reissue:-Covers and samples:"Reasons", the album's breakout love ballad, has been covered by Stanley Turrentine, Ramsey Lewis, Maxi Priest and other artists. "Reasons" has also been sampled by Master P on Intro/17...
  
  ) are major successes on both the rhythm and blues and pop music charts.
• The exclusively female 14th Army Band begins integrating male members.
• John Williams
  John Williams
  John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
  
  ' score for Jaws
  Jaws (film)
  Jaws is a 1975 American horror-thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg and based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. In the story, the police chief of Amity Island, a fictional summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a giant man-eating great white shark by closing the beach,...
  
   helps "revitalize the symphonic score, using existing practices and vocabularies".
• The rise of the Khmer Rouge
  Khmer Rouge
  The Khmer Rouge literally translated as Red Cambodians was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan...
  
   in Cambodia leads to a wave of immigration to the United States, clustering in Lowell, Massachusetts
  Lowell, Massachusetts
  Lowell is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA. According to the 2010 census, the city's population was 106,519. It is the fourth largest city in the state. Lowell and Cambridge are the county seats of Middlesex County...
  
   and Long Beach, California
  Long Beach, California
  Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
  
  , thus marking the beginning of a large Cambodian American musical tradition.
• Ned Buster holds the first traditional dance among the Ardmore Choctaw since 1937, then helps found the Choctaw-Chickasaw Heritage Committee to promote the long-dormant music, dance and other cultural heritage of the Choctaw
  Choctaw
  The Choctaw are a Native American people originally from the Southeastern United States...
  
   and Chickasaw
  Chickasaw
  The Chickasaw are Native American people originally from the region that would become the Southeastern United States...
  
   peoples.
• Parliament
  Parliament (band)
  Parliament was a funk band most prominent during the 1970s. It and its sister act Funkadelic, both led by George Clinton, began the funk music culture of that decade.-History:...
  
  's Mothership Connection
  Mothership Connection
  In 2003 the TV network VH1 named Mothership Connection the 55th greatest album of all time.In 2003, the album was ranked number 274 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time....
  
   is a funk
  Funk
  Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
  
   milestone, introducing "new approaches to varying moods, textures and timbres that symbolize... concepts of heterogeneity and spontaneity in black cultural expression".
• Pearl Williams-Jones begins her groundbreaking research on the "performance aesthetic" of Pentecostal Christian music.
• The Popovich Brothers are the subject of a film by Jill Godmilow, finding great fame for their style, based on the Serbo-Croatian tamburitza
  Tamburitza
  Tamburica or Tamboura refers to any member of a family of long-necked lutes popular in Eastern and Southern Europe, particularly Croatia , Serbia and Hungary. It is also known in southern Slovenia and Burgenland...
  
   tradition.
• Punk is the first documented fanzine
  Fanzine
  A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
  
   devoted to punk rock
  Punk rock
  Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
  
   in the United States. Fanzines will soon become an integral part of the field of punk rock
  Punk rock
  Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
  
  .
• The term salsa
  Salsa music
  Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
  
  s growing acceptance as music terminology is reflected by its use in the Latin New York Music Awards this year.
• Scott Joplin
  Scott Joplin
  Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions, and was later dubbed "The King of Ragtime". During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas...
  
  's Treemonisha
  Treemonisha
  Treemonisha is an opera composed by the famed African-American ragtime composer Scott Joplin. Though it encompasses a wide range of musical styles other than ragtime, and Joplin did not refer to it as such, it is sometimes incorrectly referred to as a "ragtime opera"...
  
   is revived in its first "full-scale professional production", by the Houston Grand Opera
  Houston Grand Opera
  Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
  
   and with an all-black cast and orchestration by Gunther Schuller
  Gunther Schuller
  Gunther Schuller is an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, and jazz musician.- Biography and works :...
  
  , who also conducted.
• Thomas F. Johnston begins a series of publication over this and the next year, which are among the most extensive ethnomusicological research done in Alaska.
• Deejay Tom Moulton
  Tom Moulton
  Tom Moulton is an American record producer, and originator of the remix, the breakdown section, and the 12-inch single vinyl format.-Life and career:Thomas Jerome Moulton was born in Schenectady, New York, United States....
  
   begins selling disco records in twelve-inch singles. The format is a "deejay-friendly medium that establish(es) the deejay" as a remixer who would rearrange, edit and then record dance music version for play in clubs.
• Van McCoy
  Van McCoy
  Van Allen Clinton McCoy was an accomplished musician, music producer, arranger, songwriter, and orchestra conductor. He is known best for his 1975 internationally successful song "The Hustle", which is still played in dance halls and on radio to this day more than thirty years since his death...
  
  's "The Hustle
  Hustle (dance)
  The Hustle is a catchall name for several disco dances which were extremely popular in the 1970s. Today it mostly refers to the unique partner dance done in ballrooms and nightclubs to disco music. It has some features in common with swing dance. Its basic steps are somewhat similar to the...
  
  " makes disco
  Disco
  Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
  
   into a national trend.
• Vietnamese immigration to the United States decreases, and most Vietnamese American music into the 21st century draws entirely on the music of Vietnam
  Music of Vietnam
  Traditional Vietnamese music is highly diverse and syncretistic, combining native and foreign influences. Throughout its history, Vietnam has been heavily impacted by the Chinese musical tradition, as an integral part, along with Korea, Mongolia and Japan....
  
   as it was before this year, which marks the end of the Vietnam War
  Vietnam War
  The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
  
  . Many of the upland Vietnamese people, however, begin moving to the United States in this period, bringing with them a unique musical culture as they settled throughout the country, though especially in North Carolina. The end of the Vietnam War also leads to increased Thai
  Thai people
  The Thai people, or Siamese, are the main ethnic group of Thailand and are part of the larger Tai ethnolinguistic peoples found in Thailand and adjacent countries in Southeast Asia as well as southern China. Their language is the Thai language, which is classified as part of the Kradai family of...
  
  , Cham, Lao
  Lao people
  The Lao are an ethnic subgroup of Tai/Dai in Southeast Asia.-Names:The etymology of the word Lao is uncertain, although it may be related to tribes known as the Ai Lao who appear in Han Dynasty records in China and Vietnam as a people of what is now Yunan Province...
  
   and Hmong
  Hmong people
  The Hmong , are an Asian ethnic group from the mountainous regions of China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. Hmong are also one of the sub-groups of the Miao ethnicity in southern China...
  
   immigration to the United States.
• Walter Hawkins
  Walter Hawkins
  Walter Hawkins was an American gospel music singer, and a pastor. Hawkins was consecrated to the bishopic in 1992. He died at his home in Ripon, California, from pancreatic cancer....
  
   and his choir record Love Alive
  Love Alive
  Love Alive is an album and single by Heart. Released in 2005, it features some of their overlooked hits from the late '70s and early '80s.-Track listing:#"Barracuda" - 4:21#"Love Alive" - 4:25#"Say Hello" - 3:36#"Sweet Darlin'" - 3:16...
  
  , a massively successful gospel record that will remain on the charts for three years.
• The Wiz
  The Wiz
  The Wiz: The Super Soul Musical "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is a musical with music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls and book by William F. Brown. It is a retelling of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in the context of African American culture. It opened on October 21, 1974 at the Morris A...
  
  , a retelling of The Wizard of Oz
  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
  The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. Originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of...
  
   as musical theater with an all-black cast, is a groundbreaking, award-winning "smash hit" that presages a "resurgence of musical shows by blacks".
• Patti Smith
  Patti Smith
  Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....
  
  's debut, Horses
  Horses (album)
  "Horses" is often cited as one of the greatest albums in music history. In 2003, the album was ranked number 44 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. NME named the album number 1 in its list "20 Near-as-Damn-It Perfect Initial Efforts"...
  
   was the first album to come out of New York
  New York
  New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
  
   punk rock
  Punk rock
  Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
  
   scene.
• The duo of John McLaughlin
  John McLaughlin (musician)
  John McLaughlin , also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer...
  
   and Zakir Hussain
  Zakir Hussain (musician)
  Zakir Hussain , , is an Indian tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer.-Early life:Hussain was born in Mumbai, India to the legendary tabla player Alla Rakha. He attended St...
  
   become one of the first duos to perform what will be known as fusion world music
  World music
  World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
  
  .
• RCA Records
  RCA Records
  RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
  
   introduces the 12" vinyl single as a promotional tool aimed at DJs in dance clubs.

1976

• Philip Glass
  Philip Glass
  Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
  
  ' Einstein on the Beach
  Einstein on the Beach
  Einstein on the Beach is an opera that premiered on July 25, 1976 at the Avignon Festival in France, scored and written by Philip Glass and designed and directed by theatrical producer Robert Wilson. It also contains writings by Christopher Knowles, Samuel M. Johnson and Lucinda Childs...
  
   opens at sold out shows at the Metropolitan Opera House
  Metropolitan Opera House (Lincoln Center)
  The Metropolitan Opera House is an opera house located on Broadway at Lincoln Square in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the theater opened in 1966. It replaced the former Metropolitan Opera House at Broadway and 39th St...
  
  , signifying newfound success for modern experimental music.
• The Bicentennial celebration helps inspire a resurgence of interest in traditional ethnic music, beginning with the Smithsonian's sponsorship of the Bicentennial Festival of American Folklife. Irish American groups at the festival are the first to be formally received by the Irish Embassy in the United States. The festival is a pivotal point in Irish American music history, offering the field what is viewed as its first official recognition and approval.
• Bill Conti
  Bill Conti
  William "Bill" Conti is an American film music composer who is frequently the conductor at the Academy Awards ceremony.-Early life and career:...
  
  's score for Rocky
  Rocky
  Rocky is a 1976 American sports drama film directed by John G. Avildsen and both written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It tells the rags to riches American Dream story of Rocky Balboa, an uneducated but kind-hearted debt collector for a loan shark in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...
  
   helps "revitalize the symphonic score, using existing practices and vocabularies".
• PBS first airs the series Dance in America.
• Will Ackerman and Anne Robinson
  Anne Robinson
  Anne Josephine Robinson is an English journalist and television presenter, known for her assertive views and acerbic style of presenting. She was one of the presenters on the long-running British consumer affairs series, Watchdog, from 1993 to 2001 before returning in 2009...
  
   found Windham Hill Records
  Windham Hill Records
  Windham Hill Records is a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment specializing in Acoustic, New Age and Folk music. Originally founded in 1976 as an Independent record label by guitarist and carpenter William Ackerman and his then-wife Anne Robinson, Windham Hill was a successful and well-respected...
  
  , one of the most prominent record labels in New Age music
  New Age music
  New Age music is music of various styles intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is often...
  
  .
• The American Folklife Preservation Act is passed, establishing (among other things), the American Folklife Center
  American Folklife Center
  The American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC was created by Congress in 1976 "to preserve and present American Folklife" . The center includes the Archive of Folk Culture, established at the Library in 1928 as a repository for American folk music...
  
   of the Library of Congress
  Library of Congress
  The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
  
  , which works with a number of federal agencies, including the Smithsonian Institution
  Smithsonian Institution
  The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
  
   and the Bureau of Indian Affairs
  Bureau of Indian Affairs
  The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...
  
  .
• Afrika Bambaataa
  Afrika Bambaataa
  Afrika Bambaataa is an American DJ from the South Bronx, New York who was instrumental in the early development of hip hop throughout the 1980s. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the three originators of break-beat deejaying, and is respectfully known as the "Grandfather" and the Amen Ra of Universal...
  
   emerges as a major competitor to DJ Kool Herc
  DJ Kool Herc
  Clive Campbell , also known as Kool Herc, DJ Kool Herc and Kool DJ Herc, is a Jamaican-born DJ who is credited with originating hip hop music, in The Bronx, New York City...
  
  , who had long been by far the single most prominent individual in hip hop culture.
• The Mexican American farmworker movement, which had long used music as a tool of communication, expression and organization, is buoyed by the release of ¡Huelga en general!, a collection of farmworker songs that had originally been produced by El Teatro Campesino. This year's ¡Si se puede!, with performances from a number of musicians, also inspires the Latino farmworkers in their struggles.
• The first woman begins serving as cantor
  Hazzan
  A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...
  
   in a Reform synagogue.
• The Son of Lion gamelan
  Gamelan
  A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included....
  
   ensemble is founded in New York, becoming one of the first such permanent groups to use local instruments and commission new compositions. Founding members include Barbara Benary
  Barbara Benary
  Barbara Benary is an American composer and ethnomusicologist specializing in Indonesian and Indian music.In 1976 she co-founded Gamelan Son of Lion with Philip Corner and Daniel Goode; she also constructed most of the group's instruments...
  
  , Philip Corner
  Philip Corner
  Philip Corner is an American composer, action musician, trombone/alphornist, sometime vocalist, pianist-improvisor, theorist-educator, graphic score designer, and visual artist, collage&assembleur, calligrapher.-Biography:After The High School of Music & Art in New York City, Philip Corner...
  
   and Daniel Goode
  Daniel Goode
  Daniel Goode is an American composer and clarinetist.Daniel Goode was born in New York City. After graduating in 1957 from Oberlin College, he studied composition at Columbia University with Henry Cowell and Otto Luening, receiving an MA 1962...
  
  .
• Stephen Sondheim
  Stephen Sondheim
  Stephen Joshua Sondheim is an American composer and lyricist for stage and film. He is the winner of an Academy Award, multiple Tony Awards including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards, a Pulitzer Prize and the Laurence Olivier Award...
  
  's Pacific Overtures
  Pacific Overtures
  Pacific Overtures is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, a libretto by John Weidman, and additional material by Hugh Wheeler. The musical is set in 1853 Japan and follows the difficult Westernization of Japan, through the lives of two friends caught in the change...
  
  , libretto by John Weldman, is a groundbreaking musical that uses an entirely Asian cast and instruments.
• Tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon
  Dexter Gordon
  Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...
  
   performs in New York and New Orleans, inspiring a wave of interest in bebop
  Bebop
  Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
  
  , leading to a revival of that style.
• The National Endowment for the Arts
  National Endowment for the Arts
  The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
  
   makes field recordings of traditional Irish American musicians, the first such to be commercially released, on Rounder Records
  Rounder Records
  Rounder Records, originally of Cambridge, Massachusetts, but now based in Burlington, Massachusetts, is a record label founded in 1970 by Ken Irwin, Bill Nowlin and Marian Leighton-Levy, while all three were still university students...
  
   the following year.
• The first modern American klezmer
  Klezmer
  Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
  
   band forms, and Irving Howe
  Irving Howe
  Irving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Life and career:...
  
   publishes World of Our Fathers an enormously successful and influential exploration of Eastern European Jewish culture.
• San Francisco's punk rock
  Punk rock
  Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
  
   scene begins.
• Geoffrey Stokes' Star-Making Machinery is a seminal academic work, one of the first to examine the marketing and creation of a pop group.
• The synclavier
  Synclavier
  The Synclavier System was an early digital synthesizer, polyphonic digital sampling system, and music workstation, manufactured by New England Digital Corporation, Norwich, VT. The original design and development of the Synclavier prototype occurred at Dartmouth College with the collaboration of...
  
   is the first portable electronic and digital keyboard intended for home consumers.

1977

• Elvis Presley
  Elvis Presley
  Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
  
   dies, leading to a period of national mourning. About 80,000 people attend a public viewing of his casket in Graceland
  Graceland
  Graceland is a large white-columned mansion and estate that was home to Elvis Presley in Memphis, Tennessee. It is located at 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard in the vast Whitehaven community about 9 miles from Downtown and less than four miles north of the Mississippi border. It currently serves as...
  
  .
• Erwin Helfer
  Erwin Helfer
  Erwin Helfer is an American boogie-woogie, blues and jazz pianist.-Biography:Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, United States, as a child Helfer was more interested in classical music than blues. Helfer was introduced to piano blues as a young teenager growing up in Chicago in the early 1950s...
  
   coaxes legendary blues singer Mama Yancey out of retirement.
• The film and soundtrack Saturday Night Fever
  Saturday Night Fever
  Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 drama film directed by John Badham and starring: John Travolta as Tony Manero, an immature young man whose weekends are spent visiting a local Brooklyn discothèque; Karen Lynn Gorney as his dance partner and eventual friend; and Donna Pescow as Tony's former dance...
  
   helps fuel the popularity of disco
  Disco
  Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
  
   and inspires a string of similar energetic, dance-focused films. The success of the album also re-establishes the soundtrack
  Soundtrack
  A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
  
   as a tool in promoting both music and films.
• John Williams
  John Williams
  John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
  
  ' score for Star Wars
  Star Wars
  Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
  
   helps "revitalize the symphonic score, using existing practices and vocabularies".
• The Voyager 1
  Voyager 1
  The Voyager 1 spacecraft is a 722-kilogram space probe launched by NASA in 1977, to study the outer Solar System and eventually interstellar space. Operating for as of today , the spacecraft receives routine commands and transmits data back to the Deep Space Network. At a distance of as of...
  
   spacecraft is set to include recordings of music, featuring ancient chants, Beethoven, Bach
  Bạch
  Bạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...
  
   and Blind Willie Johnson
  Blind Willie Johnson
  "Blind" Willie Johnson was an American singer and guitarist, whose music straddled the border between blues and spirituals....
  
  's "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground
  Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground
  "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground"Because documentation is scarce in early recordings, the title of the song appears differently in many sources. It is often called "Dark Was the Night" or punctuated as "Dark Was the Night ". is a gospel-blues song written and performed by American musician...
  
  ".
• The Smithsonian Institution
  Smithsonian Institution
  The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
  
   creates the Office of Folklife Programs, later the Center for Folklife Programs and Cultural Studies, to conduct and publish research.
• John LaMonte's House of Sounds is searched by the FBI resulting in the largest counterfeit recording bust in American history.
• Deejay Frankie Knuckles
  Frankie Knuckles
  Frankie Knuckles is an American DJ, record producer and remix artist. He played an important role in developing house music as a Chicago DJ in the 1980s and he helped to popularize house music in the 1990s, with his work as a producer and remixer...
  
   begins working at the Warehouse
  Warehouse
  A warehouse is a commercial building for storage of goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial areas of cities and towns. They usually have loading docks to load and unload...
  
  , which is the origin of house music
  House music
  House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
  
  .
• Leanne Hinton
  Leanne Hinton
  Leanne Hinton is an emerita professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. She specializes in American Indian languages, sociolinguistics, and language revitalization...
  
  's dissertation, on Havasupai songs, contains an extensive description of that tribe's use of vocable
  Vocable
  In speech, a vocable is an utterance, term, or word that is capable of being spoken and recognized. A non-lexical vocable is used without semantic role or meaning, while structure of vocables is often considered apart from any meaning...
  
  s, and is a notable early study of their use in Native American music.
• The International Academy of Jazz Hall of Fame, hosted at the William Pitt Student Union in the University of Pittsburgh
  University of Pittsburgh
  The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
  
  , opens. It is the oldest jazz hall of fame.
• The first wave of American punk rock
  Punk rock
  Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
  
   begins in Southern California
  Southern California
  Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
  
  , based in Hollywood, with bands like X, The Germs
  The Germs
  The Germs are an American punk rock band from Los Angeles, California, originally active from 1977 to 1980. The band's early lineup consisted of singer Darby Crash, guitarist Pat Smear, bassist Lorna Doom, and their most consistent drummer Don Bolles. Germs have since reformed in 2005 with Shane...
  
  , The Weirdos
  The Weirdos
  The Weirdos were an American punk rock band from Los Angeles, California. They formed in 1976 and broke up in 1981, were occasionally active in the 1980s, and recorded new material in the 1990s...
  
  , The Urinals and The Screamers
  The Screamers
  The Screamers were a punk rock group active in the Los Angeles, California area in the late 1970s. The Screamers were pioneers of a genre now known as "synthpunk," and can also be classified as art punk....
  
  . The Germs become an especially noted forerunner of hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
  
  . This same year, the first Washington, D.C. punk band, White Boy, forms as well.
• Tipitina, a music venue in New Orleans, opens. It will be the only large music performance venue in the city until the mid-1990s.
• Will Ackerman founds Windham Hill, the most influential record label in New Age music
  New Age music
  New Age music is music of various styles intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is often...
  
  .

1978

• Charley Rappaport
  Charley Rappaport
  Charley Rappaport is an American musician5, co-founder of the Balalaika and Domra Society of America2, which coordinates Russian balalaika and domra orchestras across the United States4....
  
  , Stephen M. Wolownik
  Stephen M. Wolownik
  Stephen M. "Steve" Wolownik was a pioneer in the Russian and Eastern European music community in the United States. He was a co-founder of the .- Biography :...
  
   and Lynn Carpenter form the Balalaika and Domra Association of America, which brings together many of the Russian balalaika
  Balalaika
  The balalaika is a stringed musical instrument popular in Russia, with a characteristic triangular body and three strings.The balalaika family of instruments includes instruments of various sizes, from the highest-pitched to the lowest, the prima balalaika, secunda balalaika, alto balalaika, bass...
  
   orchestras across the country, and serves as a "clearinghouse for importing Russian instruments, books, and music".
• Erno Rapee
  Erno Rapee
  Ernö Rapée was one of the most prolific American symphonic conductors in the first half of the 20th Century...
  
  's Encyclopedia of Music for Pictures is published, "to provide ideas for music appropriate to a scene" in a movie.
• Don Cornelius
  Don Cornelius
  Donald Cortez "Don" Cornelius is an American television show host and producer who is best known as the creator of the nationally syndicated dance/music franchise Soul Train, which he hosted from 1971-1993...
  
  ' Soul Train
  Soul Train
  Soul Train is an American musical variety show that aired in syndication from October 1971 to March 2006. In its 35-year history, the show primarily featured performances by R&B, soul, and hip hop artists, although funk, jazz, disco, and gospel artists have also appeared.As a nod to Soul Trains...
  
  , an African American counterpart to American Bandstand
  American Bandstand
  American Bandstand is an American music-performance show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989 and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as producer...
  
  , first airs.
• The emcee begins to replace the DJ as the most prominent performer in hip hop.
• Simon Frith
  Simon Frith
  Simon Frith is a British sociologist, and former rock critic, who specializes in popular music culture. He is currently Tovey Chair of Music at University of Edinburgh.-Background:...
  
   and Angela McRobbie
  Angela McRobbie
  Angela McRobbie is a British cultural theorist, feminist and commentator. She combines the study of different dimensions of youth culture with a commentary on development in cultural theory and politics.-Biography:...
  
   are the first academic researchers to study the perceived inherent masculinity of rock music, concluding that it is a product of socialization early in life, in which females are encouraged to be passive and submissive, qualities antithetical to much rock music.
• Sony
  Sony
  , commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
  
   introduces the Walkman
  Walkman
  Walkman is a Sony brand tradename originally used for portable audio cassette, and now used to market Sony's portable audio and video players as well as a line of Sony Ericsson mobile phones...
  
  , a portable cassette
  Compact Cassette
  The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...
  
   player that contributes greatly to the success of that format for recorded music.
• Martin Scorsese
  Martin Scorsese
  Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
  
  ' documentary of The Band
  The Band
  The Band was an acclaimed and influential roots rock group. The original group consisted of Rick Danko , Garth Hudson , Richard Manuel , and Robbie Robertson , and Levon Helm...
  
  , Last Waltz, pioneers a new style of concert film, presenting a more naturalistic image than the larger-than-life atmosphere of most earlier concert films.
• Middle Class
  Middle Class (band)
  The Middle Class are an American punk rock/hardcore punk band established in 1977 in Santa Ana, California. The band consisted of Jeff Atta on vocals, Mike Atta on lead guitar, Mike Patton on bass, and Bruce Atta on drums. The band achieved major success in the hardcore punk scene of Southern...
  
   releases "Out of Vogue", the first West Coast hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
  
   recording.
• The North American Basque Organization begins sponsoring a summer camp to help keep alive the musical and other cultural traditions of Basque Americans.
• The Tyagaraja Festival in Cleveland is founded, by members of the Faith United Church of Christ, to protect and promote Carnatic music
  Carnatic music
  Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...
  
  , becoming the largest music festival of its kind outside India, and the first such festival in the United States.
• Kent State University
  Kent State University
  Kent State University is a public research university located in Kent, Ohio, United States. The university has eight campuses around the northeast Ohio region with the main campus in Kent being the largest...
  
   establishes one of the first Thai musical ensembles in the United States.
• Sound Explosion becomes the first Filipino American mobile DJing group, which will soon become a major phenomenon in the San Francisco area.
• The Apple II
  Apple II
  The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
  
  's alphaSyntauri music system is the first "low-cost professionally usable computer music system".

1979

• Blondie
  Blondie (band)
  Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...
  
   becomes the first band to release a video album with Eat to the Beat
  Eat to the Beat
  Eat to the Beat is the fourth studio album by the American rock band Blondie. It reached no.1 on the UK album charts in October 1979, no.9 in Australia and no.17 in the US.-History:...
  
  .
• The Broadway
  Broadway theatre
  Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
  
   musical turned film Hair is released; the film's soundtrack is a highly popular example of modern theater.
• A deejay, Steve Dahl
  Steve Dahl
  Steven Robert Dahl has been an American radio personality and humorist for more than thirty years. He is currently podcasting, and releases the podcasts for download daily from his own website as well as the iTunes store...
  
  , leads the disco demolition rally in Comiskey Park
  Comiskey Park
  Comiskey Park was the ballpark in which the Chicago White Sox played from 1910 to 1990. It was built by Charles Comiskey after a design by Zachary Taylor Davis, and was the site of four World Series and more than 6,000 major league games...
  
  , a turning point in the backlash against disco
  Disco
  Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
  
  .
• Paul Lansky
  Paul Lansky
  Paul Lansky is an American electronic-music or computer-music composer who has been producing works from the 1970s up to the present day .-Biography:...
  
  's Six Fantasies on a Poem by Thomas Campion is an important composition that uses computer synthesis of sounds and human speech.
• The Federal Cylinder Project is created to rescue ethnographic records, most of them made under the Bureau of Ethnology and repatriate the recordings to their peoples of origin. It will be the "largest repatriation project undertaken by any world archive".
• "Rappers Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang becomes the first commercially released hip hop recording, coming quickly after the Fatback Band
  Fatback Band
  The Fatback Band is an American funk and disco band. Most popular in the 1970s and 1980s, The Fatback Band is most known for their Top Ten R&B hits, " Spanish Hustle", "I Like Girls", "Gotta Get My Hands on Some ", and "Backstrokin'"...
  
  's "King Tim III", which contains a hip hop-style rapping section. It is released by Sugar Hill Records
  Sugar Hill Records (rap)
  Sugar Hill Records was the name of a rap music record label that was founded in 1979 by husband and wife Joe and Sylvia Robinson with Milton Malden and financial funding of Morris Levy, the owner of Roulette Records.-History:...
  
  , which sold over 500,000 copies. Later that year, Joe Bataan
  Joe Bataan
  Joe Bataan is a Filipino-African American Latin R&B musician from New York.- Early life and career :...
  
  's "Rap-O, Clap-O" is a minor in the United States but is the first international hip hop hit.
• The first large mariachi
  Mariachi
  Mariachi is a genre of music that originated in the State of Jalisco, in Mexico. It is an integration of stringed instruments highly influenced by the cultural impacts of the historical development of Western Mexico. Throughout the history of mariachi, musicians have experimented with brass, wind,...
  
   festival in the United States is held, the San Antonio International Mariachi Conference.
• John Storm Roberts
  John Storm Roberts
  John Storm Roberts was a British-born, U.S.-based ethnomusicologist, writer and record producer. He is best known as the co-founder of Original Music, a mail-order company that distributed world music books and records....
  
   publishes a book entitled The Latin Tinge: The Impact of Latin American Music on the United States, a landmark study of Latin music in the United States
  Latin music in the United States
  Latin music has long influenced American popular music, jazz, rhythm and blues, and even country music. For an early example , the bridge to "St. Louis Blues"--"Saint Louie woman, with her diamond rings"--has a habanera beat, prompting Jelly Roll Morton to comment, "You've got to have that Spanish...
  
  .
• The complex traditions of Cambodian court music, long exclusive to the royalty in that country, are democratized both in Cambodia and among Cambodian Americans, who come to see court music as a fundamental part of their cultural identity.
• The most successful American group playing Balinese music
  Music of Bali
  Bali is an Indonesian island that shares in the gamelan and various other Indonesian musical styles. Bali, however, has its own techniques and styles, including kecak, a form of singing that imitates the sound of monkeys...
  
  , Gamelan Sekar Jaya
  Gamelan Sekar Jaya
  Gamelan Sekar Jaya is a Balinese gamelan ensemble located in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has been called "the finest Balinese gamelan ensemble outside of Indonesia" by Indonesia’s Tempo Magazine. It performs the music and dance of Bali in many different genres of Balinese gamelan, mainly...
  
  , is founded.
• The Iranian Revolution
  Iranian Revolution
  The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
  
   leads to an influx of immigrants from Iran, many of them trained in classical Persian music; their concentration in Los Angeles leads to that city becoming a center for Iranian music in the United States.
• The second wave of American punk rock
  Punk rock
  Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
  
   begins in Southern California
  Southern California
  Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
  
  , based in Hollywood, eventually evolving into the style known as hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
  
  . The form is closely associated with slamdancing, apocryphally said to have been invented in this year by Mike Marine of Huntington Beach, California
  Huntington Beach, California
  Huntington Beach is a seaside city in Orange County in Southern California. According to the 2010 census, the city population was 189,992; making it the largest beach city in Orange County in terms of population...
  
  .
• Philip Tagg publishes an analysis of the theme song to Kojak
  Kojak
  Kojak is an American television series starring Telly Savalas as the title character, bald New York City Police Department Detective Lieutenant Theo Kojak. It aired from October 24, 1973, to March 18, 1978, on CBS. It took the time slot of the popular Cannon series, which was moved one hour earlier...
  
  , the first major semiologist study on popular music.
• After an effort led by Kenneth Gamble, President Jimmy Carter
  Jimmy Carter
  James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
  
   designates June National Black Music Month. Chuck Berry
  Chuck Berry
  Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
  
   appears at the White House at the first official celebration of the month.
• The Walkman
  Walkman
  Walkman is a Sony brand tradename originally used for portable audio cassette, and now used to market Sony's portable audio and video players as well as a line of Sony Ericsson mobile phones...
  
   is introduced by Sony
  Sony
  , commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
  
  .

1980

• The film Urban Cowboy
  Urban Cowboy
  Released as a 2× vinyl record album, re-released on CD in 1995.Side A:#Hello Texas – Jimmy Buffett #All Night Long – Joe Walsh #Times Like These – Dan Fogelberg #Nine Tonight – Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band...
  
   helps inspire a resurgence in mainstream popularity for mainstream country music.
• The movie Fame features an influential soundtrack.
• Afrika Bambaataa
  Afrika Bambaataa
  Afrika Bambaataa is an American DJ from the South Bronx, New York who was instrumental in the early development of hip hop throughout the 1980s. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the three originators of break-beat deejaying, and is respectfully known as the "Grandfather" and the Amen Ra of Universal...
  
  's "Planet Rock
  Planet Rock (song)
  "Planet Rock" is a 1982 song by Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force. In the background and hooks featured Marvella Murray, Yvette Murray, Melissa Johnson and Sandra Wheeler. Although it was only a minor hit in the US, Canada, and UK, it helped change the foundations of hip-hop and dance music...
  
  ", which uses a sample from Kraftwerk
  Kraftwerk
  Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...
  
  's "Trans-Europe Express
  Trans-Europe Express (song)
  "Trans-Europe Express" is the title track of Kraftwerk's 1977 album of the same name, and released as a single at the time, and reissued on CD in 1990. The music was written by Ralf Hütter, and the lyrics by Hütter and Florian Schneider. The track is ostensibly about the Trans Europ Express rail...
  
  ", enlarges the audience for electro-funk and hip hop.
• Bad Brains
  Bad Brains
  Bad Brains is an American hardcore punk band formed in Washington, D.C., in 1977. They are widely regarded as among the pioneers of hardcore punk, though the band's members objected to this term to describe their music. They are also an adept reggae band, while later recordings featured elements of...
  
   releases "Pay to Cum", the first East Coast hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
  
   release. A compilation called Rodney on the ROQ is released with a copy of influential hardcore periodical Flipside
  Flipside (fanzine)
  Flipside was a punk rock fanzine published in Los Angeles, California from 1977 to 2000.As one of the first and longest running US punk rock fanzines, this publication extensively chronicled the world of independent and underground music during this era. Known for its highly opinionated cast of...
  
  , spawning a wave of hardcore-themed zenes like Berkeley, California
  Berkeley, California
  Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
  
  's Maximum RockNRoll
  Maximum RocknRoll
  Maximum rocknroll is a widely distributed, monthly not-for-profit fanzine based in San Francisco, USA. It features interviews, columns, and reviews from international contributors...
  
  , San Jose, California
  San Jose, California
  San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
  
  's Ripper
  Ripper
  Ripper may refer to:* Jack the Ripper, a pseudonym given to an unidentified serial killer active in the largely impoverished Whitechapel area and adjacent districts of London in the latter half of 1888...
  
   and New York's The Big Takeover
  The Big Takeover
  The Big Takeover is a bi-annual music magazine published out of New York City since 1980 by critic Jack Rabid.-Overview:The Big T usually appears in June and December, with most recent issues coming in around 200 pages. The review section, featuring Jack’s Top 40 for the issue, is regularly 60-80...
  
  .
• The band Blondie
  Blondie (band)
  Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...
  
  's "The Rapture
  Rapture (song)
  "Rapture" is a single by the American new wave band Blondie. It was released in January 1981 and was the second and final song to be released from the band's 1980 top 10 album Autoamerican, the first being "The Tide Is High", which had topped the chart in the US and UK. "Rapture" went on to reach...
  
  " is a major hip hop-influenced hit. For many white audiences, it is their first exposure to hip hop, and Deborah Harry
  Debbie Harry
  Deborah Ann "Debbie" Harry is an American singer-songwriter and actress, best known for being the lead singer of the punk rock and new wave band Blondie. She has also had success as a solo artist, and in the mid-1990s she performed and recorded as part of The Jazz Passengers...
  
  's vocal work constitutes the first white person to rap on record.
• After the Mariel boatlift
  Mariel boatlift
  The Mariel boatlift was a mass emigration of Cubans who departed from Cuba's Mariel Harbor for the United States between April 15 and October 31, 1980....
  
  , Afro-Cubans begin arriving in the United States in larger numbers, bringing with them distinctive musical, especially religious, styles, techniques and instrumentation.
• John Donald Robb
  John Donald Robb
  John Donald Robb was an American composer, ethnomusicologist, arts administrator, and attorney from New Mexico. He was a professor at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and served as Dean of the university's College of Fine Arts from 1942 to 1957...
  
  's Hispanic Folk Music of New Mexico and the Southwest: A Self-Portrait of a People is published, becoming the standard reference book on the subject; Robb's recordings are the base of the John Donald Robb Archive of Southwestern Folk Music at the University of New Mexico
  University of New Mexico
  The University of New Mexico at Albuquerque is a public research university located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the United States. It is the state's flagship research institution...
  
  , which is the largest collection of Southwestern American folk music.
• John Lennon
  John Lennon
  John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
  
   is murdered in New York, and his death is taken by many fans as a symbol of the end of the 1960s countercultural
  Counterculture
  Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
  
   movement.
• Ruben Bladés
  Rubén Blades
  Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna is a Panamanian salsa singer, songwriter, lawyer, actor, Latin jazz musician, and politician, performing musically most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres...
  
  ' Siembra
  Siembra
  Siembra is an album by Rubén Blades and Willie Colón released by Fania Records in 1978.-Background:At that time, it became the best-selling salsa record in history. This record was broken with the release of Cuenta Conmigo by Jerry Rivera in the 1990s...
  
   sets sales records for American salsa, and makes him one of the most enduring figures in the field.
• The first usage of the word hardcore to describe what will later be known as hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
  
   may come from an article in the San Francisco magazine Damaged.
• Alison Geldard conducts one of the first major studies of Indian American music.
• The University of California, Los Angeles
  University of California, Los Angeles
  The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
  
   establishes a Near East Ensemble to perform Middle Eastern music, under the direction of Ali Jihad Racy.
• Roland
  Roland
  Roland was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. Historically, Roland was military governor of the Breton March, with responsibility for defending the frontier of Francia against the Bretons...
  
   introduces the TR-808, an influential early synthesizer
  Synthesizer
  A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
  
  .

1981

• Vangelis
  Vangelis
  Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis...
  
  ' score for Chariots of Fire
  Chariots of Fire
  Chariots of Fire is a 1981 British film. It tells the fact-based story of two athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian who runs for the glory of God, and Harold Abrahams, an English Jew who runs to overcome prejudice....
  
   is an influential film composition, an early example to use "obviously synthesized sounds".
• James Cleveland
  James Cleveland
  The Reverend Dr. James Cleveland was a gospel singer, arranger, composer and, most significantly, the driving force behind the creation of the modern gospel sound, bringing the stylistic daring of hard gospel and jazz and pop music influences to arrangements for mass choirs...
  
   becomes the first gospel singer with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
  Hollywood Walk of Fame
  The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
  
  .
• The breakthrough release for the gospel dynasty the Winan family, Introducing the Winans, is released.
• MTV
  MTV
  MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
  
   premiers, showing the first of its music video
  Music video
  A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
  
  s, The Buggles
  The Buggles
  The Buggles were an English New Wave band consisting of Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes . They are remembered chiefly for their 1979 debut single "Video Killed the Radio Star" that was #1 on the singles chart in 16 countries. Its music video was the first to be shown on MTV in the U.S...
  
  ' "Video Killed the Radio Star
  Video Killed the Radio Star
  "Video Killed the Radio Star" is a song by the British synthpop/New Wave group The Buggles, released as their debut single on 7 September 1979, on Island Records from their debut album The Age of Plastic. It celebrates the golden days of radio, describing a singer whose career is cut short by...
  
  ". The channel is intended both to appeal to a young demographic poorly served by existing channels as well as market and expose new acts to popular music audiences. MTV will go on to expose audiences to new music to the present, but will also be criticized for adversely affecting the quality of both recorded and live music. It will become the largest international media company presenting popular music through cable and satellite.
• The Texas Talent Musicians' Association establishes the Tejano Music Awards
  Tejano Music Awards
  The Tejano Music Awards had been launched in 1980 by former art teacher and music veteran Rudy Trevino and the leader of the Latin Breed Band, Gilbert Escobedo. Only 1,500 fans turned out for the first Tejano Music Awards. Over the years, San Antonio evolved into the Nashville of Tejano music...
  
   to encourage the Tejano music
  Tejano music
  Tejano music or Tex-Mex music is the name given to various forms of folk and popular music originating among the Mexican-American populations of Central and Southern Texas...
  
   industry.
• Harsh restrictions on dissenters in Haiti leads to another wave of migration to the United States, especially artists in a field known as angaje, including Ti-Manno, Manno Charlemagne
  Manno Charlemagne
  Manno Charlemagne, born 1948, is a Haitian political folk singer, songwriter and acoustic guitarist, lifelong political activist and former politician. He recorded his political chansons in both French and in Creole. He lived abroad in exile twice, both during the 1980s and again during the years...
  
   and Les Fr&egauche;res Parent.
• Minor Threat
  Minor Threat
  Minor Threat was an American hardcore punk band formed in Washington, D.C. in 1980 and disbanded in 1983. The band was relatively short-lived, but had a strong influence on the hardcore punk music scene, both stylistically and in establishing a "do it yourself" ethic for music distribution and...
  
  's "Straight Edge" inspires the straight edge
  Straight edge
  Straight edge is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational drugs. It was a direct reaction to the sexual revolution, hedonism, and excess associated with punk rock. For some, this extends to not engaging in promiscuous sex, following a...
  
   movement within hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
  
  , while the Dead Kennedys
  Dead Kennedys
  Dead Kennedys are an American punk rock band formed in San Francisco, California in 1978. The band became part of the American hardcore punk movement of the early 1980s. They gained a large underground fanbase in the international punk music scene....
  
  ' "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" is an influential tirade against the white racists who are becoming a substantial part of the hardcore scene in some areas. Black Flag
  Black Flag (band)
  Black Flag was an American punk rock band formed in 1976 in Hermosa Beach, California. The band was established by Greg Ginn, the guitarist, primary songwriter and sole continuous member through multiple personnel changes in the band...
  
   records Damaged
  Damaged (Black Flag album)
  Damaged is the debut studio album by the American hardcore punk band Black Flag. It was released in December 1981 through SST Records. In 2003, the album was ranked number 340 on Rolling Stones list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time....
  
  , one of the seminal hardcore records, and Fear
  Fear (band)
  Fear is an American punk rock band from Los Angeles, California, formed in 1977. The band is credited for helping to shape the sound and style of American hardcore punk, the group started out as part of the early California punk rock scene, and gained national prominence after an infamous 1981...
  
  's appearance on Saturday Night Live
  Saturday Night Live
  Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
  
   inspires and lends legitimacy to the burgeoning hardcore sound.
• Lilian Esop organizes the first Kannel Days festival to celebrate the Estonian American kannel
  Kantele
  A kantele or kannel is a traditional plucked string instrument of the zither family native to Finland, Estonia, and Karelia. It is related to the Russian gusli, the Latvian kokle and the Lithuanian kanklės. Together these instruments make up the family known as Baltic psalteries...
  
  . This same year also sees Gottlieb Peets begin manufacturing kannels
  Kantele
  A kantele or kannel is a traditional plucked string instrument of the zither family native to Finland, Estonia, and Karelia. It is related to the Russian gusli, the Latvian kokle and the Lithuanian kanklės. Together these instruments make up the family known as Baltic psalteries...
  
  , soon becoming one of the premier manufacturers in the country.
• The Asian American Jazz Festival is founded to promote the field of Asian American jazz
  Asian American jazz
  Asian American jazz is a musical movement in the United States begun in the 20th century by Asian American jazz musicians.Although Asian Americans had been performing jazz music almost since that music's inception, it was not until the late 20th century when a distinctly Asian American brand of...
  
  .
• The American Gamelan Institute
  American Gamelan Institute
  The is an organization devoted to promoting and documenting all forms of gamelan, the performing arts of Indonesia, and their international counterparts....
  
   is established by Jody Diamond
  Jody Diamond
  Jody Diamond is an American composer, performer, writer, publisher, editor, and educator. She specializes in traditional and new music for Indonesian gamelan and is active internationally as a scholar, performer, and publisher.-Biography:She received a B.A. from the University of California,...
  
   to document the American gamelan
  Gamelan
  A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included....
  
   tradition.
• Teen Idles' Minor Disturbance
  Minor Disturbance
  Minor Disturbance was the sole studio extended play by the Washington, D.C. hardcore punk band The Teen Idles, released on Dischord Records in December 1980...
  
   becomes the first Washington, D.C. hardcore recording, and the first release by Dischord Records
  Dischord Records
  Dischord Records is a Washington, D.C.-based independent record label specializing in the independent punk music of the D.C.-area music scene. The label is co-owned by Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson, who founded Dischord in 1980 to release Minor Disturbance by The Teen Idles...
  
  , while Al Barile becomes a punk after seeing a Minor Threat
  Minor Threat
  Minor Threat was an American hardcore punk band formed in Washington, D.C. in 1980 and disbanded in 1983. The band was relatively short-lived, but had a strong influence on the hardcore punk music scene, both stylistically and in establishing a "do it yourself" ethic for music distribution and...
  
   show; he will become the leader of the Boston hardcore
  Boston hardcore
  Boston hardcore is the hardcore punk scene of Boston, Massachusetts. Boston hardcore is the hardcore punk scene of Boston, Massachusetts. Boston hardcore is the hardcore punk scene of Boston, Massachusetts. (Not to be confused with Boston metalcore (also known as metallic hardcore; itself an...
  
   scene and found SS Decontrol. The hardcore scene of New York, Florida, Madison, Seattle and Detroit also begin to coalesce in this year.
• The United Methodist Church
  United Methodist Church
  The United Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination which is both mainline Protestant and evangelical. Founded in 1968 by the union of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church, the UMC traces its roots back to the revival movement of John and Charles Wesley...
  
   publishes Songs of Zion, a "pioneering collection of hymns, spirituals, and gospel songs" as a supplement to the official church hymnal
  Hymnal
  Hymnal or hymnary or hymnbook is a collection of hymns, i.e. religious songs, usually in the form of a book. The earliest hand-written hymnals are known since Middle Ages in the context of European Christianity...
  
  .
• The Army sets rules for when military band members are to abandon their musical missions for more important purposes.

1982

• Michael Jackson
  Michael Jackson
  Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
  
  's Thriller
  Thriller (album)
  Thriller is the sixth studio album by American recording artist Michael Jackson. It was released on November 30, 1982, by Epic Records as the follow-up to Jackson's critically and commercially successful 1979 album Off the Wall...
  
   becomes the biggest-selling album in history.
• Jacob Druckman
  Jacob Druckman
  Jacob Druckman was an American composer born in Philadelphia. A graduate of the Juilliard School, Druckman studied with Vincent Persichetti, Peter Mennin, and Bernard Wagenaar. In 1949 and 1950 he studied with Aaron Copland at Tanglewood and later continued his studies at the École Normale de...
  
   produces a concert series with the New York Philharmonic
  New York Philharmonic
  The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
  
  , which helps the fledgling neoromantic movement gain momentum.
• Andrew Lloyd Webber
  Andrew Lloyd Webber
  Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
  
  's Cats
  Cats (musical)
  Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot...
  
   is one of the most "important musicals" of the 1980s, and surpasses A Chorus Line
  A Chorus Line
  A Chorus Line is a 1975 musical about Broadway dancers auditioning for spots on a chorus line. The book was authored by James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics were written by Edward Kleban, and music was composed by Marvin Hamlisch....
  
   as the longest-running show on Broadway.
• Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force add synthesizers and electronic instruments to hip hop, defining the hip hop sound of the 1980s.
• The first official hymnal of Church of God in Christ
  Church of God in Christ
  The Church of God in Christ is a Pentecostal Holiness Christian denomination with a predominantly African-American membership. With nearly five million members in the United States and 12,000 congregations, it is the largest Pentecostal church and the fifth largest Christian church in the U.S....
  
   is published, Yes Lord! The Church of God in Christ Hymnal.
• Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five's "The Message" is the first hip hop recording to focus on the harsh realities of ghetto
  Ghetto
  A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
  
   life.
• The National Endowment for the Arts
  National Endowment for the Arts
  The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
  
   begins giving out National Heritage Awards
  National Heritage Fellowship
  The National Heritage Fellowship is a lifetime honor presented to master folk and traditional artists by the National Endowment for the Arts. Similar to Japan's Living National Treasure award, the Fellowship is the United States' highest honor in the folk and traditional arts...
  
  ; the first winners include the Seattle sean nos
  Sean-nós song
  Sean-nós is a highly ornamented style of unaccompanied traditional Irish singing. It is a sean-nós activity, which also includes sean-nós dancing...
  
   singer Joe Feeney
  Joe Feeney
  Joe Feeney was an American tenor singer who was a member of The Lawrence Welk Show television program.Born to an Irish-American family in Grand Island, Nebraska, Feeney first started singing as a boy soprano in his hometown's church choir and after high school, he landed a guest appearance on the...
  
  .
• The Misfits' Walk Among Us
  Walk Among Us
  -Band:* Glenn Danzig – vocals, guitar on "Vampira", "Devils Whorehouse", "Astro Zombies", overdubbed guitar on all tracks except "Mommy Can I Go Out & Kill Tonight?"* Jerry Only – bass, background vocals...
  
   is their best-selling album, and they soon become one of the most nationally known bands of the hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
  
   movement.
• The compact disc
  Compact Disc
  The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
  
   (CD) is introduced jointly by Sony
  Sony
  , commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
  
   and Philips
  Philips
  Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
  
  ; the format will soon become the dominant medium for popular music sale.

1983

• The movie Flashdance
  Flashdance
  Another song used in the film, "Maniac", was also nominated for an Academy Award. It was written by Michael Sembello and Dennis Matkosky, and was inspired by the 1980 horror film Maniac. The lyrics about a killer on the loose were rewritten so that it could be used in Flashdance...
  
   features a massively popular soundtrack that used unfamiliar, synthesized sounds. Paramount
  Paramount Pictures
  Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
  
  's music trailers for the film are the first such advertisements for a movie.
• Phillip Glass' Koyaanisqatsi
  Koyaanisqatsi
  Koyaanisqatsi also known as Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance, is a 1982 film directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke....
  
   is an influential avant-garde film and score.
• The movie The Big Chill
  The Big Chill (film)
  The Big Chill is a 1983 American comedy-drama film directed by Lawrence Kasdan, starring Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, and JoBeth Williams. It is about a group of baby boomer college friends who reunite briefly after 15 years due to...
  
   establishes a trend of using preexisting songs that give a sense of time, identity and place for the movie; this becomes standard practice.
• Gospel at Colonus is a successful Off-Broadway
  Off-Broadway
  Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
  
   musica; that helps establish the modern career of the Blind Boys of Alabama.
• George Winston
  George Winston
  George Winston is an American pianist who was born in Michigan, and grew up mainly in Miles City, Montana as well as Mississippi and Florida. He attended Stetson University in Deland, Florida and lives in Santa Cruz, California.-Background:...
  
   becomes the first New Age music
  New Age music
  New Age music is music of various styles intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is often...
  
   star with his recordings Winter into Spring
  Winter into Spring
  Winter into Spring is the third solo album of pianist George Winston, released in 1982. It was inspired by the transition of the seasons and was the follow-up to his 1980 album, Autumn. It was reissued on Winston's Dancing Cat label.-Track listing:...
  
   and Autumn, December.
• The success of Michael Jackson
  Michael Jackson
  Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
  
  's Thriller
  Thriller (album)
  Thriller is the sixth studio album by American recording artist Michael Jackson. It was released on November 30, 1982, by Epic Records as the follow-up to Jackson's critically and commercially successful 1979 album Off the Wall...
  
   signifies an end to the first major recession for the music industry since the late 1940s. It is the "best-selling album in pop-music history" at the time.
• The Grammy Awards expands its Latin awards to include Tropical, Latin Pop and Mexican American.
• A resurgence of interest in traditional Norwegian music leads to the re-formation of the Hardanger Violinist Association of America.
• Run-D.M.C.
  Run-D.M.C.
  Run–D.M.C. was an American hip hop group from Hollis, in the Queens borough of New York City. Founded by Joseph "Run" Simmons, Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels, and Jason "Jam-Master Jay" Mizell, the group is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential acts in the history of hip hop culture.Run–D.M.C...
  
  's "It's Like That" launches their career as the leading hip hop group of the decade. They will be the first rappers on MTV
  MTV
  MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
  
   and American Bandstand
  American Bandstand
  American Bandstand is an American music-performance show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989 and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as producer...
  
  .
• Yamaha
  Yamaha
  Yamaha may refer to:* Yamaha Corporation, a Japanese company with a wide range of products and services** Yamaha Motor Company, a Japanese motorized vehicle-producing company...
  
   introduces the DX7, the most successful synthesizer in the United States.
• Soft drink corporation Pepsi-Cola sponsors a Michael Jackson
  Michael Jackson
  Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
  
   tour. The sponsorship is reported to have increased sales of Pepsi products by ten percent in cities where Jackson performed, and the success of the plan accelerates the corporate sponsorship of rock tours.

1984

• The International Bluegrass Music Association
  International Bluegrass Music Association
  The International Bluegrass Music Association, or IBMA, is a trade association to promote bluegrass music.Formed in 1985, IBMA established its first headquarters in Owensboro, Kentucky. In 1988 they announced plans to create the International Bluegrass Music Museum as a joint venture with...
  
   is founded.
• Jan Hammer
  Jan Hammer
  Jan Hammer is a composer, pianist and keyboardist. He first gained his most visible audience while playing keyboards with the Mahavishnu Orchestra in the early 1970s, as well as his film scores for television and film including "Miami Vice Theme" and "Crockett's Theme", from the popular 1980s...
  
  's "musical direction" for Miami Vice
  Miami Vice
  Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...
  
  , a popular television show, and the success of the score for the film Against All Odds, released as Against All Odds
  Against All Odds (soundtrack)
  Against All Odds: Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack for the 1984 film Against All Odds. The album includes the original score by Larry Carlton, as well as several tracks by artists popular at the time of the film's release...
  
  , show a new acceptance for rock-based soundtracks.
• George Nierenberg's documentary
  Documentary film
  Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
  
   Say Amen, Somebody re-establishes the reputation of pioneering gospel
  Gospel music
  Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
  
   singers Delois Barrett Campbell, Billie Barrett and Rodessa Barrett, who become cult favorites.
• Run-D.M.C.
  Run-D.M.C.
  Run–D.M.C. was an American hip hop group from Hollis, in the Queens borough of New York City. Founded by Joseph "Run" Simmons, Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels, and Jason "Jam-Master Jay" Mizell, the group is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential acts in the history of hip hop culture.Run–D.M.C...
  
  's Run-D.M.C.
  Run-D.M.C. (album)
  Run–D.M.C. is the debut album of American hip hop group Run–D.M.C.. Produced in 1984, it was considered groundbreaking for its time, presenting a harder, more aggressive form of hip hop. The album's sparse beats and aggressive rhymes were in sharp contrast with the light, funky sound that was...
  
   is the first hip hop album to go gold.
• The first New Mexican Hispano to receive the National Heritage Fellowship
  National Heritage Fellowship
  The National Heritage Fellowship is a lifetime honor presented to master folk and traditional artists by the National Endowment for the Arts. Similar to Japan's Living National Treasure award, the Fellowship is the United States' highest honor in the folk and traditional arts...
  
   from the National Endowment for the Arts
  National Endowment for the Arts
  The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
  
   is Cleofes Vigil, a well-known performer of alabados and other styles of indigenous New Mexican music.
• Joyce Hakala founds Koivun Kaiku, the first Finnish kantele
  Kantele
  A kantele or kannel is a traditional plucked string instrument of the zither family native to Finland, Estonia, and Karelia. It is related to the Russian gusli, the Latvian kokle and the Lithuanian kanklės. Together these instruments make up the family known as Baltic psalteries...
  
   band in the United States.
• The Army creates a new position at Fort Benjamin Harrison
  Fort Benjamin Harrison
  Fort Benjamin Harrison was a U.S. Army post located in suburban Lawrence, Indiana, northeast of Indianapolis. It is named for the 23rd United States President, Benjamin Harrison. Land was purchased in 1903, with the post being officially named for President Harrison in honor of Indianapolis being...
  
  , Indiana, to lead all Army bands.
• The Dove Awards for Christian music and the Stellar Gospel Music Awards are first instituted.

1985

• Tipper Gore
  Tipper Gore
  Mary Elizabeth "Tipper" Gore , née Aitcheson, is an author, photographer, former second lady of the United States, and the estranged wife of Al Gore...
  
   forms the Parents' Music Resource Center to combat misogyny
  Misogyny
  Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
  
   in heavy metal and other undesirable traits in popular music. The Center is said to have been formed in direct response to a mother's concern over her daughter listening to Prince
  Prince (musician)
  Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
  
  's "Darling Nikki", which is about female masturbation
  Masturbation
  Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
  
  .
• The Federal Cylinder Project begins repatriating many of the recordings catalogued and preserved since its inception in 1979, presenting them to their communities of origin.
• FinnFestUSA
  FinnFestUSA
  FinnFest USA is a summer festival held annually in locations throughout the United States of America. Aiming to celebrate Finland, Finnish America, and Finnish culture, the festival is organized by a 501 non-profit corporation with a national office maintained by its president, located presently in...
  
   is first held; the festival, which promotes Finnish-American music and culture, will become a "primary vehicle for the rejuvenation of Finnish American identity", particularly among second generation and beyond communities.
• Anthony Davis
  Anthony Davis (composer)
  Anthony Davis, better known as Tony Davis , is an American composer, jazz pianist, and student of gamelan music.-Biography:...
  
  ' X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X
  X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X
  X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X is an opera with music by Anthony Davis and libretto by Thulani Davis. Based on the life of the civil rights leader Malcolm X...
  
   debuts at the American Music Theater Festival, performed by the New York City Opera
  New York City Opera
  The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
  
  . This is the first "avant-garde opera written by a black composer".
• Stevie Ray Vaughan
  Stevie Ray Vaughan
  Stephen Ray "Stevie Ray" Vaughan was an American electric blues guitarist and singer. He was the younger brother of Jimmie Vaughan and frontman for Double Trouble, a band that included bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton. Born in Dallas, Vaughan moved to Austin at the age of 17 and...
  
  's Texas Flood
  Texas Flood
  Texas Flood was released on June 13, 1983, with two singles released from the album—"Pride and Joy" and "Love Struck Baby". "Pride and Joy" peaked at #20 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. "Texas Flood" was nominated for Best Traditional Blues Performance and "Rude Mood" was nominated for Best...
  
   helps inspire a wave of interest among white listeners for rural African American blues styles.
• The Revolution Summer
  Revolution Summer
  Revolution Summer may refer to:* Revolution Summer , a film directed by Miles Montalbano* Revolution Summer , a soundtrack album by Jonathan Richman...
  
   transforms the Washington, D.C.
  Washington, D.C.
  Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
  
   hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk
  Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
  
   scene into a more melodic, mid-tempo and less aggressive style, an important part of the origin of emo
  Emo
  Emo is a style of rock music and its associated subcultureEmo may also refer to:- Businesses :* Emo , an Irish oil company and filling station chain* Emo Speedway, a racetrack in Emo, Ontario...
  
  . The New York hardcore community begins changing as well, evolving into a more aggressive style, associated with right-wing politics.
• "We Are the World
  We Are the World
  "We Are the World" is a song and charity single originally recorded by the supergroup USA for Africa in 1985. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, and produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian for the album We Are the World...
  
  ", written by Lionel Richie
  Lionel Richie
  Lionel Brockman Richie, Jr. , is an American singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Since 1968, he has been a member of the musical group Commodores signed to Motown Records...
  
   and Michael Jackson
  Michael Jackson
  Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
  
  , constitutes the beginning of charity rock in the United States.
• People v. Manning results in the New York Transit Authority lifting its ban on musical performances in New York's subway system. Music-makers, buskers, continue to be ticketed, however, for "soliciting donations without permission".
• The Federal Communications Commission
  Federal Communications Commission
  The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
  
   rules that station groups can own more than one FM and one AM radio station in the same market.
• MTV
  MTV
  MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
  
   launches VH-1, a music channel intended for older audiences, playing a selection of light pop, soul and country.

1986

• Steven Tyler
  Steven Tyler
  Steven Tyler is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, best known as the frontman and lead singer of the Boston-based rock band Aerosmith, in which he also plays the harmonica, and occasional piano and percussion. He is known as the "Demon of Screamin'", due to his high screams...
  
   and Joe Perry
  Joe Perry (musician)
  Anthony Joseph "Joe" Perry is the lead guitarist, backing and occasional lead vocalist, and contributing songwriter for the rock band Aerosmith. He is influenced by many rock artists especially The Rolling Stones and The Beatles...
  
   appeared on Run D.M.C.'s cover of Aerosmith
  Aerosmith
  Aerosmith is an American rock band, sometimes referred to as "The Bad Boys from Boston" and "America's Greatest Rock and Roll Band". Their style, which is rooted in blues-based hard rock, has come to also incorporate elements of pop, heavy metal, and rhythm and blues, and has inspired many...
  
  's "Walk This Way
  Walk This Way
  "Walk This Way" is a song by American hard rock group Aerosmith. Written by Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, the song was originally released as the second single from the 1975 album Toys in the Attic. It peaked at Number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1977, part of a string of successful hit...
  
  ". It becomes the first big rap-rock crossover hit, reaching #4 on the Billboard
  Billboard (magazine)
  Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
  
   Hot 100.
• Jonathan Demme
  Jonathan Demme
  Robert Jonathan Demme is an American filmmaker, producer and screenwriter. Best known for directing The Silence of the Lambs, which won him the Academy Award for Best Director, he has also directed the acclaimed movies Philadelphia, Rachel Getting Married, the Talking Heads concert movie Stop...
  
  's Something Wild features a score by avant-garde composers John Cale
  John Cale
  John Davies Cale, OBE is a Welsh musician, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer who was a founding member of the experimental rock band The Velvet Underground....
  
  , Laurie Anderson
  Laurie Anderson
  Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...
  
   and David Byrne
  David Byrne (musician)
  David Byrne is a musician and artist, best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the American new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1975 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo recordings and worked with various media including film, photography,...
  
  .
• Fintan Vallely publishes the first instruction book for the traditional flute, Timber - The Flute Tutor.
• Paul Simon
  Paul Simon
  Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...
  
  's Graceland
  Graceland (album)
  Graceland was Paul Simon's highest charting album in the U.S. in over a decade, reaching #3 in the national Billboard charts, receiving a certification of 5× Platinum by the RIAA and eventually selling over 14 million copies, making it Simon's most commercially successful album...
  
   features African performers, instrumentation and musical techniques, "almost singlehandedly (carving) out a space for African musicians in the European American mainstream", and inspiring "countless other musicians" in the emerging world music
  World music
  World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
  
   field. Simon was criticized for recording the album in violation of an international boycott of apartheid South Africa
  South Africa
  The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
  
  .
• Muriel Thayer Painter completes the most extensive documentation of the music, dance and other ceremonial aspects of culture of the Yaqui Native Americans of Arizona.
• Jello Biafra
  Jello Biafra
  Jello Biafra is an American musician, spoken word artist and leading figure of the Green Party of the United States. Biafra first gained attention as the lead singer and songwriter for San Francisco punk rock band Dead Kennedys...
  
  , frontman for the Dead Kennedys
  Dead Kennedys
  Dead Kennedys are an American punk rock band formed in San Francisco, California in 1978. The band became part of the American hardcore punk movement of the early 1980s. They gained a large underground fanbase in the international punk music scene....
  
  , is charged with distributing harmful materials to minors for a poster with interlocked male and female genitalia, a painting by H. R. Giger
  H. R. Giger
  Hans Rudolf "Ruedi" Giger is a Swiss surrealist painter, sculptor, and set designer. He won an Academy Award for Best Achievement for Visual Effects for his design work on the film Alien.-Early life:...
  
  , included with the album Frankenchrist
  Frankenchrist
  Frankenchrist is the third album released by the American hardcore punk band Dead Kennedys in 1985 on Alternative Tentacles.The album was a subject of controversy because of a poster inserted in the original record sleeve. The poster, H. R. Giger's Landscape #XX, or Penis Landscape, was a painting...
  
  .
• The approximate beginning of new school hip hop
  New school hip hop
  The new school of hip hop was a movement in hip hop music starting 1983–84 with the early records of Run-D.M.C. and LL Cool J. Like the hip hop preceding it, it came predominately from New York City. The new school was initially characterized in form by drum machine led minimalism, often tinged...
  
  , and the end of old school hip hop
  Old school hip hop
  Old school hip hop describes the earliest commercially recorded hip hop music , and the music in the period preceding it from which it was directly descended . Old school hip hop is said to end around 1983 or 1984 with the emergence of Run–D.M.C., the first new school hip hop group...
  
  .
• Slovenian American polka legend Frankie Yankovic
  Frankie Yankovic
  Frankie Yankovic was a Grammy Award-winning polka musician. Known as "America's Polka King," Yankovic was the premier artist to play in the Slovenian style during a long and successful career.-Background:Of Slovene descent, he was raised in South Euclid, Ohio...
  
   receives the first Grammy Award
  Grammy Award
  A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
  
   for polka.
• Robert Rodriguez
  Robert Xavier Rodriguez
  Robert Xavier Rodríguez is an American classical composer, best known for his eight operas and his works for children.- Life and career :...
  
  ' The Seven Deadly Sins is the first theatrical multimedia composition for a wind ensemble.
• The New Grove Dictionary of American Music is the first music encyclopedia that covers a wide range of popular music, along with folk and classical.
• The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
  Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...
  
   is founded.

1987

• Asian Improv Records is founded, soon becoming one of the premier labels of the Asian American jazz
  Asian American jazz
  Asian American jazz is a musical movement in the United States begun in the 20th century by Asian American jazz musicians.Although Asian Americans had been performing jazz music almost since that music's inception, it was not until the late 20th century when a distinctly Asian American brand of...
  
   movement.
• Cigarette company Benson & Hedges
  Benson & Hedges
  Benson & Hedges is a British brand of cigarettes owned by the Gallaher Group, which became a subsidiary of Japan Tobacco in 2007. They are registered in Old Bond Street in London, and are manufactured in Lisnafillen, Ballymena, Northern Ireland for the UK and Irish markets.-History:Benson & Hedges...
  
   becomes the first major corporation to sponsor a tour of American jazz musicians.
• The premier of Nixon in China
  Nixon in China (opera)
  Nixon in China is an opera in three acts by John Adams, with a libretto by Alice Goodman. Adams' first opera, it was inspired by the 1972 visit to China by US President Richard Nixon. The work premiered at the Houston Grand Opera on October 22, 1987, in a production by Peter Sellars with...
  
   by John Coolidge Adams
  John Coolidge Adams
  John Coolidge Adams is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer with strong roots in minimalism. His best-known works include Short Ride in a Fast Machine , On the Transmigration of Souls , a choral piece commemorating the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks , and Shaker...
  
   with librettist Alice Goodman
  Alice Goodman
  Alice Goodman , American poet, was educated at Harvard University and Cambridge where she studied English and American literature. She received her Master of Divinity degree from the Boston University School of Theology. She has written the libretti for two of the operas of John Adams, Nixon in...
  
   and stage director Peter Sellars
  Peter Sellars
  Peter Sellars is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays...
  
   at the Houston Grand Opera
  Houston Grand Opera
  Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
  
   establishes Adams' career and help introduce "contemporary issues into a traditional venue".
• The movie Dirty Dancing
  Dirty Dancing
  Dirty Dancing is a 1987 American romantic film. Written by Eleanor Bergstein and directed by Emile Ardolino, the film features Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in the lead roles, as well as Cynthia Rhodes and Jerry Orbach...
  
   features a popular soundtrack.
• At a meeting of British music industry executives, the term world music
  World music
  World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
  
   is coined, leading to a vast expansion of non-Western music sections in record stores in Europe and North America.
• KMET in Los Angeles becomes KTWV
  KTWV
  KTWV is a commercial radio station located in Los Angeles, California, broadcasting to the Los Angeles, Orange County, Riverside–San Bernardino and Ventura County areas on 94.7 FM. KTWV airs a hybrid Smooth AC radio format branded as "94.7 The Wave"...
  
  , the first all New Age
  New Age music
  New Age music is music of various styles intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is often...
  
   commercial radio station.
• Guns N' Roses
  Guns N' Roses
  Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...
  
  ' Appetite for Destruction
  Appetite for Destruction
  Appetite for Destruction is the debut studio album by American rock band Guns N' Roses, released in July 1987 on Geffen Records. It was well-received by critics and topped the American Billboard 200 chart...
  
   marks the beginning of a new era in popular heavy metal. It is the second best-selling debut album of all time.
• Conservative Jewish synagogues begin certifying women as cantors
  Hazzan
  A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...
  
  , though they will not be allowed to join the Cantors Assembly
  Cantors Assembly
  The Cantors Assembly is the international association of hazzanim affiliated with Conservative Judaism. The CA was founded in 1947 to develop the profession of the hazzan, to foster the fellowship and welfare of hazzanim, and to establish a conservatory for hazzanim...
  
   until 1990.
• The first bootleg
  Bootleg recording
  A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...
  
   CD is made.
• The Smithsonian Institution
  Smithsonian Institution
  The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
  
   acquires the catalogue of Folkways Records
  Folkways Records
  Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987, and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.-History:...
  
  , committing to keeping all the more than two thousand recordings in print. The first director of the project, Anthony Seeger, commits to acquiring additional independent labels for the Institution.

1988

• Andrew Lloyd Webber
  Andrew Lloyd Webber
  Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...
  
  's Phantom of the Opera is one of the "most important" musicals of the 1980s.
• Billboard
  Billboard (magazine)
  Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
  
   issues its first New Age
  New Age music
  New Age music is music of various styles intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management or to create a peaceful atmosphere in their home or other environments, and is often...
  
   chart.
• David Sanjek begins publishing the first comprehensive history of the American music industry.

1989

• A number of Tibetan expatriates form Chaksam-pa, the Tibetan Dance and Opera Company.
• The United States-Canada Trade Agreement spurs arguments between the two countries regarding economics of cultural products, with many on both sides fighting for the "exclusion of cultural industries from trade liberalization".
• MTV
  MTV
  MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
  
  's Yo! MTV Raps
  Yo! MTV Raps
  Yo! MTV Raps was a two-hour American television music video program, which ran from August 1988 to August 1995 through its original Yo! MTV Raps name and later by Yo! . The program was the first hip hop music show on the network, based on the original MTV Europe show, aired one year earlier. The U.S...
  
   debuts; the show will lead to many hip hop artists finding new audiences.
• The Pacific Islander Festival is established in Los Angeles, inspiring other music festivals that bring together Hawaiians, Samoans and other Polynesian Americans.
• 2 Live Crew
  2 Live Crew
  2 Live Crew was a hip hop group from Miami, Florida. They caused considerable controversy with the sexual themes in their work, particularly on their 1989 album As Nasty As They Wanna Be.- Early career :...
  
  's Nasty As They Wanna Be is accused of obscenity
  Obscenity
  An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...
  
  , resulting in a legal battle that gained national attention. N.W.A.
  N.W.A.
  N.W.A was an American hip hop group from Compton, California, widely considered one of the seminal acts of the gangsta rap sub-genre....
  
  's "Fuck Tha Police" similarly becomes the target of protest from law enforcement officers
  Law enforcement agency
  In North American English, a law enforcement agency is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.Outside North America, such organizations are called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police while others have other names In North American...
  
  .
• The simultaneous release of an international Pepsi
  Pepsi
  Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink that is produced and manufactured by PepsiCo...
  
   advertising campaign with the "Like a Prayer
  Like a Prayer
  Like a Prayer is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Madonna, released on March 21, 1989 by Sire Records, three years after her previous studio album. Madonna worked with Stephen Bray, Patrick Leonard, and fellow icon Prince on the album while co-writing and co-producing all the...
  
  " single by Madonna
  Madonna (entertainer)
  Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
  
   is perhaps the most successful and most-hyped tie-in of a popular song in an advertising campaign.
• The United States becomes a signatory to the Berne Convention
  Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works
  The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, is an international agreement governing copyright, which was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland in 1886.- Content :...
  
  , an international agreement on copyright.
• Major record companies, fearing a rise in home taping reducing sales, refuse to license recorded music for the new medium of digital audio tape
  Digital Audio Tape
  Digital Audio Tape is a signal recording and playback medium developed by Sony and introduced in 1987. In appearance it is similar to a compact audio cassette, using 4 mm magnetic tape enclosed in a protective shell, but is roughly half the size at 73 mm × 54 mm × 10.5 mm. As...
  
   until the Serial Copy Management System
  Serial Copy Management System
  The Serial Copy Management System or SCMS is a copy protection scheme that was created in response to the digital audio tape invention, in order to prevent DAT recorders from making second-generation or serial copies. SCMS sets a "copy" bit in all copies, which prevents anyone from making further...
  
   is invented to prevent more than one copy of a recording and additional copies of the single allowed copy.
• The first compact disc
  Compact Disc
  The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
  
   jukebox
  Jukebox
  A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media...
  
   is introduced.
• Milli Vanilli
  Milli Vanilli
  Milli Vanilli was a pop/dance music project formed by Frank Farian in Germany in 1988, visually fronted by Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus. The group's debut album achieved international success and earned them a Grammy Award for Best New Artist on Feb. 21, 1990. Milli Vanilli became one of the most...
  
   wins the Grammy Award for Best New Artist
  Grammy Award for Best New Artist
  The Grammy Award for Best New Artist has been awarded since 1959. Years reflect the year in which the Grammy Awards were handed out, for records released in the previous year. The award was not presented in 1967...
  
  , even as a Rolling Stone poll of rock critics results in the group being voted the worst new band of the year. After it is revealed that members of the group did not sing on the hit songs, Milli Vanilli becomes the first performers to return their Grammy.

1990

• The Immigration Act of 1990
  Immigration Act of 1990
  The Immigration Act of 1990 increased the number of legal immigrants allowed into the United States each year. It also created a lottery program that randomly assigned a number of visas. This was done to help immigrants from countries where the United States did not often grant visas...
  
   makes it much more difficult for entertainers and artists to secure visas for entering the United States.
• The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
  Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
  The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act , Pub. L. 101-601, 25 U.S.C. 3001 et seq., 104 Stat. 3048, is a United States federal law passed on 16 November 1990 requiring federal agencies and institutions that receive federal funding to return Native American "cultural items" to...
  
   (NAGPRA) is passed, allowing indigenous Americans to claim ancestral remains and funerary accoutrements, including musical instruments.
• MC Hammer
  MC Hammer
  Stanley Kirk Burrell , better known by his stage name MC Hammer , is an American rapper, entertainer, business entrepreneur, dancer and actor. He had his greatest commercial success and popularity from the late 1980s until the mid-1990s...
  
  's Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em
  Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em
  Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em is the third and most popular album by MC Hammer, released between January 1, 1990 - February 12, 1990 by Capitol Records. There were different release dates for this album, some sources also claiming February 20, 1990...
  
   becomes the best-selling hip hop album in history.
• Kid Frost
  Kid Frost
  Arturo Molina Jr. , better known as Frost , is a Mexican American hip hop artist.-Early life:...
  
  , a longtime part of the hip hop music scene, releases Hispanic Causing Panic, which precedes releases by A Lighter Shade of Brown
  A Lighter Shade of Brown
  A Lighter Shade of Brown was a Mexican American hip hop duo from Riverside, California best known for their 1990 hit single "On a Sunday Afternoon", a success in the U.S., written by songwriters/musicians David Dunson & Micah Carson.-History:...
  
  , Cypress Hill
  Cypress Hill
  Cypress Hill is an American hip hop group from South Gate, California. Cypress Hill was the first Latino hip-hop group to have platinum and multi-platinum albums, selling over 18 million albums worldwide...
  
  , and others, establishing a market for Latino hip hop
  Latino hip hop
  Latino hip hop is a form of hip hop music developed and performed by Latinos. The term is used to give distinction and credit to Latino hip hop musicians for their contribution in developing hip hop as a whole. Latino hip-hop got its start in the mid-1980s when the larger hip-hop genre was...
  
  .
• The Tahiti Fete, an annual dance competition, is established in San Jose, the first such event to have actual Tahitian judges.
• Richard Spottswood publishes a discography of "ethnic music", the first such publication to seek systematic coverage of an area of music.
• D. W. Krummel and Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie
  Stanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
  
   publish Music Printing and Publishing, the definitive academic study on the history of music printing and publishing.
• The music television channel VH1
  VH1
  VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...
  
   is launched, aimed at older audiences, compared to MTV
  MTV
  MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
  
  , and with an album-oriented rock
  Album-oriented rock
  Album-oriented rock is an American FM radio format focusing on album tracks by rock artists.-Music played:Most radio formats are based on a select, tight rotation of hit singles...
  
   policy.

1991

• Amy Grant
  Amy Grant
  Amy Lee Grant is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, media personality and actress, best known for her Christian music. She has been referred to as "The Queen of Christian Pop"...
  
  , the best-selling Christian rock performer of the time, releases her biggest crossover success, "Baby Baby".
• Billboard
  Billboard (magazine)
  Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
  
   changes its data-gathering techniques used in compiling album charts, to rely on information supplied by research firm SoundScan. The new data reveals that the commercial success of hard rock, hip hop, classic rock and country music had been underestimated.
• Scott Johnson
  Scott Johnson (composer)
  Scott Johnson is an American composer known for his pioneering use of recorded speech as musical melody. He was the recipient of a 2006 Guggenheim fellowship.- John Somebody :...
  
  's How It Happens
  How it Happens
  How it Happens is a Canadian science television series which aired on CBC Television in 1973.-Premise:This series on science was geared towards youth, exploring questions such as how jet plane avoid colliding or how spaghetti is made.-Scheduling:...
  
  , an avant-garde piece of electronic music, uses the voice of I. F. Stone
  I. F. Stone
  Isidor Feinstein Stone was an iconoclastic American investigative journalist. He is best remembered for his self-published newsletter, I. F...
  
  , backed by a string quartet
  String quartet
  A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
  
  .
• Mickey Hart
  Mickey Hart
  Mickey Hart is an American percussionist and musicologist. He is best known as one of the two drummers of the rock band the Grateful Dead. He was a member of the Grateful Dead from September 1967 to February 1971, and from October 1974 to August 1995...
  
  's Planet Drum
  Planet Drum
  Planet Drum is a world music album by Mickey Hart, a musician and musicologist who was a member of the rock band the Grateful Dead.Hart's concept for Planet Drum was to play drum music with percussionists from around the world, and incorporate their different musical styles and traditions into a...
  
   becomes the first winner of the Grammy Award for Best World Music Album
  Grammy Award for Best World Music Album
  The Grammy Award for Best World Music Album was an honor presented for twelve years to recording artists for quality albums in the world music genre at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards...
  
  .
• A group of female punk artists known as Riot Grrrl
  Riot grrrl
  Riot grrrl was an underground feminist punk movement based in Washington, DC, Olympia, Washington, Portland, Oregon, and the greater Pacific Northwest which existed in the early to mid-1990s, and it is often associated with third-wave feminism...
  
  s emerge.
• Spirit Horses, an influential flute-orchestral concerto and a collaboration between Native American flute performer R. Carlos Nakai
  R. Carlos Nakai
  Raymond Carlos “R.” Nakai is a Native American flautist of Navajo/Ute heritage.-Biography:Born Ray Carlos Nakai, in Flagstaff, Arizona, he released his first album, Changes, in 1983...
  
   and composer James DeMars.
• The first Shaoxing opera company, Shao-Xing Opera Association of New York, in the United States is founded in New York City.
• A Tribe Called Quest
  A Tribe Called Quest
  A Tribe Called Quest is an American hip hop group, formed in 1985, and is composed of rapper/producer Q-Tip , rapper Phife Dawg , and DJ/producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad. A fourth member, rapper Jarobi White, left the group after their first album but rejoined in 2006...
  
  , one of the earliest jazz hip hop fusionists, become the first hip hop group to collaborate with a live musician, Ron Carter
  Ron Carter
  Ron Carter is an American jazz double-bassist. His appearances on over 2,500 albums make him one of the most-recorded bassists in jazz history, along with Milt Hinton, Ray Brown and Leroy Vinnegar. Carter is also an acclaimed cellist who has recorded numerous times on that...
  
  , on an album, Low End Theory
  Low End Theory
  Low End Theory is a weekly experimental hip hop and electronic music club night that takes place every Wednesday at The Airliner in Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles, California.-History:...
  
  .

1992

• Phillip Glass' Symphony No. 2 "combines the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic hallmarks of his work in a more comprehensive, symphonic-style discourse than he (had) attempted before".
• The song "Cop Killer
  Cop Killer (song)
  "Cop Killer" is a song by American band Body Count, from its 1992 self-titled debut album. The lyrics are sung from the point of view of an individual who is outraged by police brutality and decides to take the law into his own hands by killing police officers...
  
  " by Body Count
  Body Count
  Body Count is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1990. The group is fronted by rapper and actor Ice-T, who founded the group out of his interest in heavy metal music, taking on the role of vocalist and writing the lyrics for most of the group's songs. Lead guitarist...
  
  , fronted by Ice-T
  ICE-T
  * Ice-T, an American rapper and actor* ICE T , a tilting model of the German InterCityExpress series of high-speed trains...
  
  , becomes the subject of national controversy and is pulled from the album by Warner Brothers, due to concerns that the song promotes the murder of police
  Police
  The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
  
  .
• The Audio Home Recording Act
  Audio Home Recording Act
  The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 amended the United States copyright law by adding Chapter 10, "Digital Audio Recording Devices and Media"...
  
   places a levy on digital media, such as CDs, that can be used to make recordings of copyrighted music without the permission of the copyright owner.
• Awadagin Pratt
  Awadagin Pratt
  - Life :When he was 3 years old, Pratt moved with his parents to Normal, Illinois, where Illinois State University had offered his mother a position as a professor of social work and his Sierra Leone-born father, Theodore, one as a physics professor...
  
   wins the Walter W. Naumburg International Piano Competition, the first African American to do so.
• Branford Marsalis
  Branford Marsalis
  Branford Marsalis is an American saxophonist, composer and bandleader. While primarily known for his work in jazz as the leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, he also performs frequently as a soloist with classical ensembles and has led the group Buckshot LeFonque.-Biography:Marsalis was born...
  
   reaches an African American music milestone when he is appointed bandleader for The Tonight Show
  The Tonight Show
  The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...
  
  , the first black musician to occupy a "major spot on mainstream nighttime television".
• Ron Nelson
  Ron Nelson
  Ron Nelson is a composer of both classical and popular music and a retired music academic.-Biography:A native of Joliet, Illinois, Ron Nelson was born December 14, 1929. He studied composition at the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester earning a bachelor's degree in 1952, a...
  
  's Passacaglia (Homage on B.A.C.H.) is the most award-winning composition for wind band in American history, winning the Barlow, American Bandmasters Association
  American Bandmasters Association
  The American Bandmasters Association was formed in 1929 by Edwin Franko Goldman to promote concert band music. Goldman sought to raise esteem for concert bands among musicians and audiences...
  
   and NBA awards.
• A collection of essays, entitled The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, is the beginning of serious scholarly research on "fandom
  Fandom
  Fandom is a term used to refer to a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of sympathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest...
  
  ", or the phenomenon of people being "fans" of a particular performer, group or genre.
• The digital compact cassette
  Digital Compact Cassette
  Digital Compact Cassette was a magnetic tape sound recording format introduced by Philips and Matsushita in late 1992 and pitched as a successor to the standard analog cassette. It was also a direct competitor to Sony's MiniDisc but neither format toppled the then ubiquitous analog cassette...
  
   is introduced by Philips
  Philips
  Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
  
   and Matsushita, but it is expensive and, despite superior sound quality, the format does not succeed. The minidisc
  MiniDisc
  The disc is permanently housed in a cartridge with a sliding door, similar to the casing of a 3.5" floppy disk. This shutter is opened automatically by a mechanism upon insertion. The audio discs can either be recordable or premastered. Recordable MiniDiscs use a magneto-optical system to record...
  
   is introduced by Sony
  Sony
  , commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
  
  , but fails to catch on in the United States.
• The first House of Blues
  House of Blues
  House of Blues is a chain of 13 live music concert halls and restaurants in major markets throughout the United States. House of Blues first location was in Cambridge's Harvard Square. It was opened in 1992 by Isaac Tigrett, co-founder of Hard Rock Cafe, and Dan Aykroyd, star of The Blues Brothers...
  
   restaurant and club opens in Boston, founded by Isaac Tigrett
  Isaac Tigrett
  Isaac Tigrett of Jackson, Tennessee is a businessman best known as founder of Hard Rock Café and House of Blues.Tigrett belonged to a well-to-do business family. He was raised in Tennessee until the age of fifteen...
  
  .

1993

• The debate over authorship of the patriotic song "Dixie
  Dixie (song)
  Countless lyrical variants of "Dixie" exist, but the version attributed to Dan Emmett and its variations are the most popular. Emmett's lyrics as they were originally intended reflect the mood of the United States in the late 1850s toward growing abolitionist sentiment. The song presented the point...
  
  " continues, with a claim made for the song being plagiarized from an African American family named the Snowdens
  Snowden Family Band
  The Snowden Family Band was an 19th century African American musical group. The children of the Snowden family of Clinton, Knox County, Ohio, comprised the ensemble. The band's career stretched from before the American Civil War into living memory; no other African American band of their type...
  
  , from Knox County, Ohio
  Knox County, Ohio
  Knox County is a county located in the state of Ohio, United States. As of 2010, the population was 60,921. Its county seat is Mount Vernon and is named for Henry Knox, an officer in the American Revolutionary War who was later the first Secretary of War....
  
  .
• Kirk Franklin
  Kirk Franklin
  Kirk Dwayne Franklin is an American Gospel music musician, choir director, and author, and is most notably known for leading urban contemporary gospel choirs such as The Family, God's Property and One Nation Crew .- Early years :...
  
  's "Why We Sing", from the album Kirk Franklin & the Family
  Kirk Franklin & the Family
  Kirk Franklin & the Family is the first album released by Kirk Franklin. This is also the first album by Franklin in collaboration with the vocal ensemble, The Family. The U.S...
  
  , becomes a popular music phenemonen.
• Gloria Estefan
  Gloria Estefan
  Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García de Estefan; known professionally as Gloria Estefan is a Cuban-born American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known as the "Queen Of Latin Pop", she is in the top 100 best selling music artists with over 100 million albums sold worldwide, 31.5 million of those...
  
  's Mi Terra becomes an unprecedented success, and establishes a wave of Latin pop in the United States.
• Shaquille O'Neal
  Shaquille O'Neal
  Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal , nicknamed "Shaq" , is a former American professional basketball player. Standing tall and weighing , he was one of the heaviest players ever to play in the NBA...
  
  , a well-known basketball player, begins his music career. He will be the most commercially successful athlete to have a long-term musical career.
• The case ZTT Records v. Holly Johnson is a key ruling on the enforceability of recording contracts, involving Holly Johnson
  Holly Johnson
  Holly Johnson is an English artist, writer and musician, best known as the lead vocalist of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and former bassist for Big in Japan.- Big in Japan :...
  
   of Frankie Goes to Hollywood
  Frankie Goes to Hollywood
  Frankie Goes to Hollywood were a British dance-pop band popular in the mid-1980s. The group was fronted by Holly Johnson , with Paul Rutherford , Peter Gill , Mark O'Toole , and Brian Nash .The group's debut single "Relax" was banned by the BBC in 1984 while at number six in the charts and...
  
  .

1994

• MuchUSA, the American branch of Canadian music television giant CHUM/Citytv, is created.
• The banning of Country Music Television
  Country Music Television
  Country Music Television, or CMT, is an American country music-oriented cable television network. Programming includes music videos, taped concerts, movies, biographies of country music stars, game shows, and reality programs...
  
   by the Radio-Television Telecommunication Commission in favor of the Canadian Country Network nearly precipitates a trade war between the United States and Canada.
• Rough Guides
  Rough Guides
  Rough Guides Ltd is a travel guidebook and reference publisher, owned by Pearson PLC. Their travel titles cover more than 200 destinations, and are distributed worldwide through the Penguin Group...
  
  , a music publishing company, releases World Music: The Rough Guide, the most comprehensive reference source for world music
  World music
  World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
  
  .
• Research by Beverly Diamond, M. Sam Cronk and Franziska von Rosen constitutes the first major musicological study of the instrumentation of an entire Native American music area, the Northeast.
• The first large kate, a traditional Cham celebration featuring music and dance, in the United States is held in San Jose.
• The Brooklyn Museum
  Brooklyn Museum
  The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
  
   begins hosting an annual week-long festival, Mahrajan al-Fan, of Arab music and culture, led by Simon Shaheen
  Simon Shaheen
  Simon Shaheen is a Palestinian-American oud and violin virtuoso and composer....
  
  .
• Kurt Cobain
  Kurt Cobain
  Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana...
  
  's suicide is taken by many of his fans and media figures as an endpoint to the "slacker
  Slacker
  The term "slacker" is used to refer to a person who habitually avoids work. Slackers may be regarded as belonging to an antimaterialistic counterculture, though in some cases their behavior may be due to other causes ....
  
  " culture that Cobain's band, Nirvana
  Nirvana (band)
  Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
  
  , and style of music, grunge
  Grunge
  Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
  
  , had symbolized.
• The case of Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.
  Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.
  Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 was a United States Supreme Court copyright law case that established that a commercial parody can qualify as fair use...
  
   - over the use of Roy Orbison
  Roy Orbison
  Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...
  
  's "Oh, Pretty Woman" in a song by 2 Live Crew
  2 Live Crew
  2 Live Crew was a hip hop group from Miami, Florida. They caused considerable controversy with the sexual themes in their work, particularly on their 1989 album As Nasty As They Wanna Be.- Early career :...
  
   - marks a change in direction by American courts in allowing the parodic fair use
  Fair use
  Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
  
   of copyrighted material in commercial works.
• The Big Easy Social and Pleasure Club is founded by Tom McLendon in Houston, Texas
  Houston, Texas
  Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
  
  , soon becoming the "most reliable and accessible" blues venue in the city.

1995

• Royal Hartigan, who developed a drum set that could be used with Ghanaian rhythmic techniques, publishes West African Rhythms for the Drum Set, which "presents a detailed exposition of cross-cultural performance and a breakthrough method that shows a new way of playing the drum set by incorporating traditional Ghanaian rhythmic forms".
• The Potawatomi Nation of Wisconsin fund the Milwaukee Ballet Company's performance of Dream Dances, a reclamation of the Potawatomi music found in Otto Luening
  Otto Luening
  Otto Clarence Luening was a German-American composer and conductor, and an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music....
  
  's Potawatomi's Legends.
• The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
  Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
  Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of New York City's Upper West Side. Reynold Levy has been its president since 2002.-History and facilities:...
  
   establishes a "jazz department on equal terms with opera and symphony orchestra".
• Television channel M2
  MTV2
  MTV2 is a cable network that is widely available in the United States on digital cable and satellite television, and is progressively being added to analogue cable lineups across the nation...
  
   is formed to replicate the constant music video
  Music video
  A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
  
   playing associated with the beginning of MTV
  MTV
  MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
  
  .

1996

• The first Free Tibet Concert is held in San Francisco; the event will be a seminal musical and political event in the coming years.
• Funding for the National Endowment for the Arts
  National Endowment for the Arts
  The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
  
   is cut by forty percent, leading the elimination of the music program.
• George Walker
  George Walker (composer)
  George Theophilus Walker is an African-American composer, the first to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He received the Pulitzer for his work Lilacs in 1996....
  
   becomes the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize
  Pulitzer Prize
  The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
  
   in music, fir Lilacs, a symphonic work based on a Walt Whitman
  Walt Whitman
  Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
  
   poem.
• The theatrical show Bring in 'da Noise/Bring in 'da Funk
  Bring in 'da Noise/Bring in 'da Funk
  Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk is a musical that debuted Off-Broadway at the New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater in 1995 and moved to Broadway in 1996. The show was conceived and directed by George C. Wolfe, and featured music by Daryl Waters, Zane Mark and Ann Duquesnay; lyrics by...
  
   is an innovative piece that creates rhythmic counterpoint using "pots, pans, and bucketsm as well as with the usual tap shoes", "electrifying audiences".
• Itzhak Perlman
  Itzhak Perlman
  Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-born violinist, conductor, and instructor of master classes. He is regarded as one of the pre-eminent violinists of the 20th and early-21st centuries.-Early life:...
  
   begins recording klezmer
  Klezmer
  Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
  
  , bring the genre to new audiences in the United States and abroad.
• The Telecommunications Act of 1996
  Telecommunications Act of 1996
  The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was the first major overhaul of United States telecommunications law in nearly 62 years, amending the Communications Act of 1934. This Act, signed by President Bill Clinton, was a major stepping stone towards the future of telecommunications, since this was the...
  
   removes all restrictions on radio station ownership.
• An international copyright treaty amends the Berne Convention, extending protection to the Internet
  Internet
  The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
  
  .

1997

• The DVD
  DVD
  A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
  
   format, primarily intended for videos, is released, with seven times the capacity of the compact disc
  Compact Disc
  The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
  
  .
• The Pulitzer Prize
  Pulitzer Prize
  The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
  
   for music is given to a jazz composition for the first time; it is Wynton Marsalis
  Wynton Marsalis
  Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...
  
  ' Blood on the Fields
  Blood on the Fields
  Blood on the Fields is a three-and-a-half-hour jazz oratorio, by Wynton Marsalis. It was commissioned by Lincoln Center and concerns a couple moving from slavery to freedom....
  
  .
• The University of Iowa
  University of Iowa
  The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
  
   returns many Native American objects of cultural importance to their respective tribes, include a number of musical instruments, returned to the Seneca Nation
  Seneca nation
  The Seneca are a group of indigenous people native to North America. They were the nation located farthest to the west within the Six Nations or Iroquois League in New York before the American Revolution. While exact population figures are unknown, approximately 15,000 to 25,000 Seneca live in...
  
  s.
• Magdalen Hsu-Li
  Magdalen Hsu-Li
  Magdalen Hsu-Li is an internationally acclaimed American singer-songwriter, painter, speaker, writer, and cultural activist. She identifies herself as bisexual and as Chinese American.-Biography:...
  
   becomes among the first Chinese American singer songwriters, and among the first to become a major figure in alternative rock
  Alternative rock
  Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
  
   with the release of her debut album, Muscle and Bone.

1998

• The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act
  Copyright Term Extension Act
  The Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 extended copyright terms in the United States by 20 years. Since the Copyright Act of 1976, copyright would last for the life of the author plus 50 years, or 75 years for a work of corporate authorship...
  
   extends the length of copyright
  Copyright
  Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
  
   by twenty years.
• Frankie Knuckles
  Frankie Knuckles
  Frankie Knuckles is an American DJ, record producer and remix artist. He played an important role in developing house music as a Chicago DJ in the 1980s and he helped to popularize house music in the 1990s, with his work as a producer and remixer...
  
   becomes the first deejay to win the Grammy Award for Best Remixer.
• Lauryn Hill
  Lauryn Hill
  Lauryn Noelle Hill is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress.Early in her career, she established her reputation as a member of the Fugees. In 1998, she launched her solo career with the release of the commercially successful and critically acclaimed album, The Miseducation of...
  
  's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
  The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
  The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is the debut solo album by American musician Lauryn Hill, released August 25, 1998, on Columbia Records. Recording sessions for the album took place from late 1997 to June 1998, and were held primarily at Tuff Gong Studios in Jamaica...
  
   and Missy Elliott
  Missy Elliott
  Melissa Arnette "Missy" Elliott , is an American rapper, singer-songwriter, record producer, and actressA five-time Grammy Award winner, Elliott, with record sales of over seven million in the United States, is the only female rapper to have five albums certified platinum by the RIAA, including one...
  
  's Supa Dupa Fly
  Supa Dupa Fly
  Upon its release, Supa Dupa Fly received critical acclaim among music critics. Writers lauded record producer Timbaland's production as unique and revolutionary, whose "lean, digital grooves are packed with unpredictable arrangements and stuttering rhythms"...
  
   are popular releases, and are pivotal recordings for women in hip hop.
• R. L. Burnside
  R. L. Burnside
  Not to be confused with R. H. Burnside, stage director.R. L. Burnside , born Robert Lee Burnside, was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist who lived much of his life in and around Holly Springs, Mississippi. He played music for much of his life, but did not receive much attention...
  
  's Come on In is a landmark recording that uses elements of hip hop
  Hip hop music
  Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
  
  , such as scratching
  Scratching
  Scratching is a DJ or turntablist technique used to produce distinctive sounds by moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable while optionally manipulating the crossfader on a DJ mixer. While scratching is most commonly associated with hip hop music, since the late 1980s, it has been used...
  
  , in a rural blues style.
• The soundtrack to Yellow
  Yellow (1998 film)
  Yellow is a 1998 film directed by Chris Chan Lee. The film is about the harrowing graduation night of eight Korean-American high school youths in Los Angeles that culminates in a violent crime that will forever change their lives....
  
  , a film by Chris Chan Lee
  Chris Chan Lee
  Chris Chan Lee is an Asian American filmmaker.After graduating from the USC School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles, California, Lee wrote/directed Yellow, an independently financed feature film about the harrowing grad night of eight Korean-American teens in Los Angeles that culminates in a...
  
  , is the first to feature only musicians of Asian descent.
• Grammy Awards launches the first award for dance music, the Grammy Award for Best Dance Record.

1999

• Kongar-ol Ondar's Back Tuva Future features Ondar, a Tuvan popular enough in his homeland to be compared to Elvis Presley
  Elvis Presley
  Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
  
  , and contributions from country star Willie Nelson
  Willie Nelson
  Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...
  
   and physicist Richard Feynman
  Richard Feynman
  Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics...
  
  ; the album uses Tuvan folk melodies
  Music of Tuva
  Tuva is a part of Russia, inhabited by a Turkic people related to the nearby Mongolians. Tuvans are known abroad for khoomei , a kind of overtone singing....
  
   and throat-singing with modern American popular music.
• Daron Hagen
  Daron Hagen
  Daron Aric Hagen , is an American composer, conductor, pianist, educator, librettist, and stage director of contemporary classical music and opera.- Early life and education :...
  
   composes Bandanna, a retelling of Othello
  Othello
  The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
  
   with a Mexican American setting, the first full opera for wind ensemble.
• An attempt at a second Woodstock festival
  Woodstock Festival
  Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...
  
   fails, and is perceived as succumbing to greed and poor planning. It ends in a frenzy of rape, theft, arson and looting.

2000

• The Grammy Award
  Grammy Award
  A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
  
  s designate seven awards for Latin music: Tejano Performance, Latin Pop Performance, Latin Rock/Alternative Performance, Mexican-American Performance, Salse Performance, Merengue Performance and Traditional Tropical Latin Performance. The Latin Grammys are also founded to focus specifically on rewarding Latin music in the United States.
• The O Brother Where Art Thou? is a surprise success, consisting of old time music, which provokes a resurgence of interest in American folk music
  American folk music
  American folk music is a musical term that encompasses numerous genres, many of which are known as traditional music or roots music. Roots music is a broad category of music including bluegrass, country music, gospel, old time music, jug bands, Appalachian folk, blues, Cajun and Native American...
  
  .
• Napster
  Napster
  Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...
  
   is convicted of violating copyright law for enabling people to trade files without permission from the owner of the copyrights in the file.

2001

• The Ken Burns
  Ken Burns
  Kenneth Lauren "Ken" Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films, known for his style of using archival footage and photographs...
  
   television documentary series Jazz is watched by an estimated 60 million people and is said to have led to a doubling of jazz sales in the United States.
• After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001
  September 11, 2001 attacks
  The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
  
  , television networks work together to show America: A Tribute to Heroes
  America: A Tribute to Heroes
  America: A Tribute to Heroes was a benefit concert created by the heads of the four broadcast networks. Joel Gallen was selected by them to produce and run the show Joel Gallen. Actor George Clooney wrangled the celebrities to performed and to man the telephone bank . The marketing and public...
  
  , a telethon to raise money for victims of the attacks. Music stars who perform include Neil Young
  Neil Young
  Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
  
  , Willie Nelson
  Willie Nelson
  Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...
  
  , Bruce Springsteen
  Bruce Springsteen
  Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
  
   and Paul Simon
  Paul Simon
  Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...
  
  .
• A concert tour featuring Hakim
  Hakim (Egyptian singer)
  Hakim is an Egyptian folk-singer. In addition to the number of albums he has put out, on December 11, 2006 he was the first person from an Arab country to perform at a Nobel Peace Prize event.-Biography:...
  
  , Khaled and Simon Shaheen
  Simon Shaheen
  Simon Shaheen is a Palestinian-American oud and violin virtuoso and composer....
  
   is a historic event, signaling new acceptance for Arab music
  Arab music
  Arabic music or Arab music is the music of the Arab World, including several genres and styles of music ranging from Arabic classical to Arabic pop music and from secular to sacred music....
  
   in the United States. Rachid Taha
  Rachid Taha
  Rachid Taha is an Algerian singer and activist based in France who has been described as "sonically adventurous." His music is influenced by many different styles such as rock, electronic, punk and raï.-Early life:Taha was born in 1958 in Sig , Algeria, although a second source suggests he was...
  
   and Cheb Mami
  Cheb Mami
  Ahmed Khelifati Mohamed better known by his stage name Cheb Mami , is an Algerian-born raï singer...
  
   had toured earlier—all five performers are popular in the Arab world. The California-based record label Arc 21/Mondo Melodia is at the heart of the Arab music boom.

2002

• George N. Thompson becomes the first African American to serve as head of the United States Navy
  United States Navy
  The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
  
  's Musical Training Program.

2003

• The Library of Congress
  Library of Congress
  The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
  
   inaguarates the National Recording Registry
  National Recording Registry
  The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, which created the National Recording...
  
  , inducting fifty historically significant recordings.
• A tribute is held to Sister Rosetta Tharpe
  Sister Rosetta Tharpe
  Sister Rosetta Tharpe was an Amercian pioneering gospel singer, songwriter and recording artist who attained great popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and early rock and roll accompaniment...
  
  , a gospel
  Gospel music
  Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
  
   legend, at the Bottom Line Cabaret in New York, featuring performances from the Dixie Hummingbirds, Odetta
  Odetta
  Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals...
  
  , and others; the same year, a tribute album
  Tribute album
  A tribute album is a recorded collection of cover versions of songs or instrumental compositions. Its concept may be either various artists making a tribute to a single artist, a single artist making a tribute to various artists, or a single artist making a tribute to another single artist.There...
  
   is released by MC Records, called Shout, Sister, Shout: A Tribute to Rosetta Tharpe.

2004

• Jin
  Jin (rapper)
  Jin Au-Yeung , who performs under the stage name MC Jin, is a Hong Kong hip hop rapper, songwriter, and actor. Growing up in the Miami, Florida area, and later living in New York City, he decided to reside permanently in his motherland, Hong Kong...
  
   becomes the first Asian American rapper on a major label with the release of The Rest Is History
  The Rest Is History
  The Rest Is History is Jin's debut album. It was released on October 18, 2004.-Background:Originally titled Almost Famous, the album was delayed for over a year. Originally slated for a Summer 2003 release it was pushed back to an October 2003 date. After plans did not materialize, the album's...
  
  .

2005

• Jeff Chang
  Jeff Chang
  Jeff Chang is a Taiwanese male singer, who performs sentimental Mandarin pop ballads.Chang was born in Yunlin, Taiwan. He started off his showbiz career by winning a singing competition while in college...
  
  's Can't Stop Won't Stop
  Can't Stop Won't Stop
  Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation is a book by Jeff Chang chronicling the early hip hop scene.The book features portraits of DJ Kool Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Chuck D, and Ice Cube, among others, and is based on numerous interviews with graffiti artists, gang members, DJs,...
  
   is published. It will become one of the definitive histories of hip hop music
  Hip hop music
  Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
  
  .

Further reading