The Minneapolis sound is a subgenre of
funk rock
Funk rock is a fusion genre that mixes elements of funk and Rock music, rock. James Brown and others declared that Little Richard and his mid-1950s road band, The Upsetters (American band), the Upsetters, were the first to put the funk in the ...
that incorporates elements of
new wave and
synth-pop
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 b ...
. Started at
Sound 80
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 ...
with tracks like “
Funkytown
"Funkytown" is a song by American disco-funk group Lipps Inc., written and produced by Steven Greenberg and released by Casablanca Records in March 1980 as the second single from the group's debut studio album, '' Mouth to Mouth'' (1979). T ...
” by Lipps, Inc and pioneered by
Minneapolis
Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...
-based musician
Prince
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...
and
André Cymone
André Cymone (born Andre Simon Anderson; June 27, 1958) is an American bassist, songwriter and record producer. He was a bass guitarist for Prince (musician), Prince's touring band, pre-The Revolution (band), Revolution. In 1981, Cymone broke ...
beginning in the late 1970s, the musical style's heyday extended through the late 1980s. The style was often heard at city clubs like
First Avenue and was exemplified by Prince-affiliated acts, including
the Time,
Vanity 6
Vanity 6 was an American female vocal trio that gained popularity in the early 1980s. They were protégées of musician Prince. Led by singer Vanity, they are known for their song " Nasty Girl". Vanity left in 1983 and the band was reformed as ...
,
Apollonia 6
Apollonia 6 was an American female singing trio founded in 1983 by Prince, as a successor to his previous group Vanity 6 following the departure of lead singer Vanity. Singers Brenda Bennett and Susan Moonsie continued from the earlier group, wh ...
,
Sheila E.
Sheila Cecilia Escovedo (born December 12, 1957), known under the stage name Sheila E., is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. Regarded as one of the greatest musicians of her generation; she is known for skills as a multi-instrumental ...
,
the Family,
Wendy & Lisa
Wendy & Lisa (briefly known as Girl Bros.) is a music duo consisting of Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman. They began working with Prince in the early 1980s and were part of his band the Revolution, before branching out on their own and releasi ...
,
Brownmark
Mark Brown (born March 8, 1962), better known by the stage name Brown Mark, also styled Brownmark and BrownMark, is an American musician, bassist and record producer.
Life and career
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, Brown's early ...
,
Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis
James Samuel "Jimmy Jam" Harris III (born June 6, 1959) and Terry Steven Lewis (born November 24, 1956) are an American R&B/pop songwriting and record production team. Their productions have received commercial success since the 1980s with vari ...
,
Morris Day
Morris E. Day (born December 13, 1957) is an American musician and songwriter. He is best known as the lead singer of The Time.
Music career
Morris Day is best known as the lead singer of The Time, a group associated with Prince. Day and Pr ...
, and
Jesse Johnson, and by acts neither affiliated with Prince nor native to Minneapolis, such as
Flint, Michigan
Flint is the largest city in Genesee County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. Located along the Flint River (Michigan), Flint River northwest of Detroit, it is a principal city within the Central Michigan, Mid Michigan region. Flin ...
's
Ready for the World
Ready for the World is an American R&B band from Flint, Michigan, that scored several pop, soul and dance hits in the mid to late 1980s. They were founded by Melvin Riley and Gordon Strozier.
Discography Studio albums
Compilation albums
*''O ...
.
According to the ''
Rolling Stone Album Guide
''The Rolling Stone Album Guide'', previously known as ''The Rolling Stone Record Guide'', is a book that contains professional music reviews written and edited by staff members from ''Rolling Stone'' magazine. Its first edition was published in 1 ...
'', "the Minneapolis sound... loomed over mid-'80s R&B and pop, not to mention the next two decades' worth of electro, house, and techno."
Identifying characteristics
While the Minneapolis sound incorporates many of
funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...
's quintessential elements, it bears several distinguishing characteristics:
*
Synthesizer
A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...
s generally replace
horn section
A horn section is a group of musicians playing horns. In an orchestra or concert band, it refers to the musicians who play the "French" horn, and in a British-style brass band it is the tenor horn players. In many popular music genres, the term ...
s of
trumpets
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B o ...
and
saxophones
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...
, and are used more as accent than as fill or background.
* The rhythm is often faster and generally less
syncopated
In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat (music), off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of ...
than traditional funk, owing much to
new wave music
New wave is a music genre that encompasses pop music, pop-oriented styles from the 1970s through the 1980s. It is considered a lighter and more melodic "broadening of Punk subculture, punk culture". It was originally used as a catch-all fo ...
. At the same time, dominant rhythm lines are often accented with repeating percussive fills at fixed intervals, often courtesy a
Linn Linn may refer to:
People
* Linn (surname)
* Linn (given name)
* Carl Linnaeus, abbreviated as Linn.
* Linn da Quebrada, stage name of Brazilian singer, actress, screenwriter and television personality Lina Pereira dos Santos (born 1990)
Place ...
or other
drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A d ...
.
* Lead guitar is frequently much louder and more aggressively processed during solos than in most traditional funk, while a
wah-wah effect is heavily relied upon for rhythm guitar accompaniments.
* Compositions often incorporate orchestral string arrangements, adding a symphonic
pathos
Pathos appeals to the emotions and ideals of the audience and elicits feelings that already reside in them. ''Pathos'' is a term most often used in rhetoric (in which it is considered one of the three modes of persuasion, alongside ethos and ...
.
* The "bottom" of the sound is less
bass
Bass or Basses may refer to:
Fish
* Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species
Wood
* Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree
Music
* Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...
-heavy than traditional funk; drums and keyboards fill more of the "bottom".
See also
*
Twin Cities hip hop
Twin Cities hip hop, also referred to as Minneapolis hip hop, is sub-genre of rap music that originates from the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Minnesota.
History
Hip hop culture in the Twin Cities can be traced ...
*
Music of Minnesota
Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all human societies. Definitions of musi ...
Sources
*
*
References
External links
* Rashad Shabazz
''How Minneapolis made Prince'' The Conversation, January 27, 2020.
{{new wave and post-punk
20th-century music genres
Prince (musician)
Culture of Minneapolis
Funk rock