Proessay.com

Term paper on Queen’s rise of rock music and Nirvana’s rise of alternative rock

The development of rock music was one of the main trends in the development of the 20th century music. The rock music has had a considerable impact on the development of the 20th century popular music. At the same time, the rise of the rock music was accompanied by the development of similar movements based on rock music, among which alternative rock became particularly significant. In fact, rock music emerged as an alternative to popular music but steadily rock music became mainstream. Remarkably, as rock music grew mainstream, alternative rock music emerged and became a challenge to popular music, including rock music. Nevertheless, alternative rock music became a true alternative to popular music and rock music but, at the same time, alternative rock music became a continuation of the development of rock music that absorbed new forms and styles. In this respect, it is possible to refer to the creative work of two music bands Queen and Nirvana which represent behemoths of rock music and alternative rock music respectively. In fact, Queen’s growing popularity marked the rise of the rock music, whereas the growing popularity of Nirvana made alternative music extremely popular. Therefore, Queen and Nirvana may be viewed as two major bands that contributed to the rise and growing popularity of rock music and alternative rock music, which are quite different but have the common ground in their essence.

The growing popularity of rock music in the 1970s ”“ 1980s was accompanied by the emergence of such popular band as Queen. In fact, Queen became one of the most popular bands of its time but its creative work and music grew more and more influential in the course of time. The rise of Queen in the 1970s was enhanced consistently by the growing popularity of the band and its music in the 1980s. However, by the early 1990s, the band faced considerable difficulties because of the death of Freddie Mercury, the lead vocalist of the band and songwriter. Nevertheless the popularity of the band did not cease after the death of the lead vocalist. Instead, the band has managed to maintain its popularity for a long time and, what is more, the band has managed to release the postmortem album Made in Heaven. The band is still active but Made in Heaven was the last album released by the band. In such a way, the history of Queen is actually the history of the rise of the rock music because Queen appeared in the 1970s and its growing popularity contributed to the wide spread of the rock music in the world to the extent that in the 1980s ”“ 1990s, the rock music eventually became mainstream.

Despite the fact that Queen has gained the world recognition and became an extremely popular band in the 1970s ”“ 1980s, its works in the late 1980s ”“ early 1990s was particularly significant. It should be pointed out that the album The Miracle marked the growing change in the philosophy of the band songwriting. Traditionally, practically all songs of the band was written by and credited to a single member with each of other members of the group often adding minimal creative input (Dean and Charlesworth, 184). In such a way, before the group worked together but it was rather a cooperative work that helped to improve the quality of a song written by one of its members, while during the work on The Miracle it was rather a cooperative work when each member of the band contributed to the final product as an author. In such a way, the final product was viewed not as a creation of one of its members but as the product of Queen at large.

This trend was continued in the next album of Queen Innuendo, which was actually the last album created with the direct participation of Freddie Mercury. This was his last album he created together with other members of the band. It is worthy of mention that the works that were included in this album as well as in the previous one. For instance, there was a hard-rocking powerhouse “Headlong”, the quirky, synthesizer-heavy, pop-styled “I’m going slightly mad”, and the reflective anthems “The Show Must Go On” and “These Are the Days of Our Lives” (Gunn and Jenkins 229).

Exit mobile version