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Izitso
''Izitso'' is the tenth studio album by the British singer-songwriter Cat Stevens, released in April 1977. After the lacklustre ''Numbers'', the album proved to be his comeback. The album updated the rhythmic folk rock and pop rock style of his earlier albums with the extensive use of synthesizers and other electronic music instruments, giving the album a more electronic rock and synthpop style, and anticipating elements of electro. Overview The album reached No. 7 on the American Pop Albums charts. It also included his last US and UK top 40 chart hit for almost three decades, the Days of the) Old Schoolyard", an early synthpop song that used the Polymoog, an early polyphonic synthesizer; it was a duet with fellow UK singer Elkie Brooks. Linda Lewis appears in the song's video, with Cat Stevens singing to her, as they portray former schoolmates, singing to each other on a schoolyard merry-go-round. (This is one of the few music videos that Stevens made, other than simple vide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cat Stevens
Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou; ), commonly known by his stage names Cat Stevens, Yusuf, and Yusuf / Cat Stevens, is a British singer-songwriter and musician. He has sold more than 100 million records and has more than two billion streams. His musical style consists of folk, rock, pop, and, later in his career, Islamic music. Following two decades in which he performed only music which met strict religious standards, he returned to making Secular music, secular music in 2006. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014. He has received two honorary doctorates and awards for promoting peace as well as other humanitarian awards. His 1967 Matthew and Son (album), debut album and its title song "Matthew and Son" both reached top 10 in the UK charts. Stevens' albums ''Tea for the Tillerman'' (1970) and ''Teaser and the Firecat'' (1971) were certified RIAA certification, triple platinum in the US. His 1972 album ''Catch Bull at Four'' went to No. 1 on the U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Numbers (Cat Stevens Album)
''Numbers'' is the ninth studio album, and the first concept album by singer/songwriter Cat Stevens released in November 1975. History of the album The album ''Numbers,'' subtitled "A Pythagorean Theory Tale," was based on a fictional planet in a far-off galaxy named Polygor. The album included a booklet with excerpts from a planned book of the same name written by Chris Bryant and Allan Scott. The booklet features pen-and-ink illustrations drawn by Stevens. The concept of the album is a fantastic spiritual musical which is set on the planet Polygor. In the story there is a castle with a number machine. This machine exists to fulfill the sole purpose of the planet – to disperse numbers to the rest of the universe: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 (but notably not 0). The nine inhabitants of Polygor, the Polygons, are Monad, Dupey, Trezlar, Cubis, Qizlo, Hexidor, Septo, Octav, and Novim. As the first lines of the book say, they "followed a life of routine that had existed for as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synthpop
Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a music genre that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic, art rock, disco, and particularly the Krautrock of bands like Kraftwerk. It arose as a distinct genre in Japan and the United Kingdom in the post-punk era as part of the new wave movement of the late 1970s. Electronic musical synthesizers that could be used practically in a recording studio became available in the mid-1960s, and the mid-1970s saw the rise of electronic art musicians. After the breakthrough of Gary Numan in the UK Singles Chart in 1979, large numbers of artists began to enjoy success with a synthesizer-based sound in the early 1980s. In Japan, Yellow Magic Orchestra introduced the TR-808 rhythm machine to popular music, and the band would be a major inf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polymoog
The Polymoog is a hybrid polyphonic analog synthesizer that was manufactured by Moog Music from 1975 to 1980. The Polymoog was based on divide-down oscillator technology similar to electronic organs and string synthesizers of the time. History The name Polymoog can refer either to the original Polymoog Synthesizer (model 203a) released in 1975, or the largely preset Polymoog Keyboard (model 280a) released in 1978. The Polymoog has a 71-note weighted Pratt & Read touch-sensitive keyboard divided into three sections with a volume slider for each. It also has a three-band resonant graphic equalizer section, which can be changed to a low/bandpass/high-pass filter. The Moog-designed 24 dB/octave filter section allows modulation modulated from its own envelopes, low frequency oscillation and sample and hold circuit. Ranks and waveforms of all notes are also adjustable combining waveforms, octaves, tunings, and their own independent LFO rates and amounts. The user can adju ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Back To Earth (Cat Stevens Album)
''Back to Earth'' is the eleventh studio album released by the British singer/songwriter Cat Stevens. It is the only album he recorded using the name Cat Stevens after his conversion to Islam until the release in September 2017 of '' The Laughing Apple'', his fifteenth studio album (credited to "Yusuf / Cat Stevens"). It was also the last album of contemporary Western music that he recorded until '' An Other Cup'', 28 years later. Background On 8 December 1977 Stevens was awarded the "Sun Peace Award" by the Symphony for the United Nations in New York City. On 23 December 1977 Stevens entered the Regent's Park Mosque in London and formally embraced Islam. On 4 July 1978, Steven Georgiou changed his name to Yusuf Islam. Although he wanted to retire from popular music after his religious conversion, Islam owed his record company Island/ A&M one more "Cat Stevens" album under his recording contract. Yusuf recorded this album in November 1978, re-uniting with his producer from th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Le Studio
Le Studio (later renamed Studio Morin Heights) was a residential recording studio in the Laurentian Mountains near the town of Morin-Heights, Quebec, Canada. Built in 1972 by recording engineer and producer André Perry, along with his wife Yaël Brandeis and Nick Blagona, the studio was seen as one of the top recording venues in North America during its existence, renowned for its retreat-like location and state-of-the-art equipment.Myers 95-96. Numerous notable Canadian and international artists recorded and stayed at Le Studio, including Rush (most notably), The Police, David Bowie, the Bee Gees, Cat Stevens, April Wine, Nazareth, Queensrÿche, and Celine Dion. Perry described the facility as "like the United Nations. I had people from London, New York, Quebec, all over the world." Originally having used a Trident A Range recording console, Le Studio then became one of the earliest studios to install a Solid State Logic SSL 4000B mixing console and RADAR digital recording e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound 80 Studios
Sound 80 is a recording studio in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States founded by engineer Tom Jung and composer/musician Herb Pilhofer in 1969. Largely involved with local artists, the studio is best known for recording portions of Bob Dylan's '' Blood on the Tracks'' in 1974 and Cat Stevens' ''Izitso'' in 1977, as well as demo tapes for Prince's first album '' For You'' in 1977. In 1978, Sound 80 made the first digital audio recording to win a Grammy Award—The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's recording of Aaron Copland's "Appalachian Spring" and "Short Symphony", and Charles Ives' " Symphony No. 3". In 2020, Sound 80 was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. History Jung and Pilhofer had previously worked at the Kay Bank Studios in Minneapolis, where artists such as Dave Dudley and The Trashmen had recorded. The Sound 80 name came from advertising man Brad Morrison, who had previously named Hormel's Cure 81 ham product (supposedly while drinking Vat 69 Sco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muscle Shoals Sound Studio
Muscle Shoals Sound Studio is an American recording studio in Sheffield, Alabama, formed in 1969 by four session musicians known as The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. They had left nearby FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals to create their own recording facility. They attracted noted artists from across the United States and Great Britain. Over the years, artists who recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio included Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Percy Sledge, Willie Nelson, Duane Allman, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Joe Cocker, Levon Helm, Paul Simon, Bob Seger, Rod Stewart, Cat Stevens, Jimmy Cliff, Cher, George Michael, and The Black Keys. History Founders The four founders of the studio, Barry Beckett, Roger Hawkins, Jimmy Johnson and David Hood, were session musicians at Rick Hall's ''FAME Studios''; they were officially known as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section but widely referred to as "The Swampers," who were recognized as having crafted the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polyphonic Synthesizer
Polyphony is a property of musical instruments that means that they can play multiple independent melody lines simultaneously. Instruments featuring polyphony are said to be polyphonic. Instruments that are not capable of polyphony are monophonic or paraphonic. An intuitively understandable example for a polyphonic instrument is a (classical) piano, on which the player plays different melody lines with the left and the right hand - depending on music style and composition, these may be musically tightly interrelated or may even be totally unrelated to each other, like in parts of Jazz music. An example for monophonic instruments is a trumpet which can generate only one tone (frequency) at a time, except when played by extraordinary musicians. Synthesizer Monophonic A monophonic synthesizer or ''monosynth'' is a synthesizer that produces only one note at a time, making it smaller and cheaper than a polyphonic synthesizer which can play multiple notes at once. This does not n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billboard 200
The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Sometimes, a recording act is remembered for its " number ones" that outperformed all other albums during at least one week. The chart grew from a weekly top 10 list in 1956 to become a top 200 list in May 1967, acquiring its existing name in March 1992. Its previous names include the ''Billboard'' Top LPs (1961–1972), ''Billboard'' Top LPs & Tape (1972–1984), ''Billboard'' Top 200 Albums (1984–1985), ''Billboard'' Top Pop Albums (1985–1991), and ''Billboard'' 200 Top Albums (1991–1992). The chart is based mostly on sales—both at retail and digital – of albums in the United States. The weekly sales period was Monday to Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but since July 2015, the tracking week begins on Friday (to coincide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Techno
Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempos being in the range from 120 to 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time ( ) and often characterized by a repetitive four on the floor beat. Artists may use electronic instruments such as drum machines, sequencers, and synthesizers, as well as digital audio workstations. Drum machines from the 1980s such as Roland's Roland TR-808 and Roland TR-909 are highly prized, and software emulations of such retro instruments are popular in this style. Much of the instrumentation in techno is used to emphasize the role of rhythm over other musical aspects. Vocals and melodies are uncommon. The use of sound synthesis in developing distinctive timbres tends to feature more prominently. Typical harmonic practices found in other forms of music are often ignored in favor of repetitive sequences of notes. More generally the creatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Wire (magazine)
''The Wire'' (or simply ''Wire'') is a British music magazine publishing out of London, which has been issued monthly in print since 1982. Its website launched in 1997, and an online archive of its entire back catalog became available to subscribers in 2013. Since 1985, the magazine's annual year-in-review issue, Rewind, has named an album or release of the year based on critics' ballots. Originally, ''The Wire'' covered the British jazz scene with an emphasis on avant-garde and free jazz. It was marketed as a more adventurous alternative to its conservative competitor '' Jazz Journal'', and targeted younger readers at a time when ''Melody Maker'' had abandoned jazz coverage. In the late 1980s and 1990s, the magazine expanded its scope until it included a broad range of musical genres under the umbrella of non-mainstream or experimental music. Since then, ''The Wire''s coverage has included experimental rock, electronica, alternative hip hop, modern classical, free improvis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
