Unit 2 Brief 1 Extracting information from written sources

N.W.A- Straight Outta Compton

Producer- Dr.Dre and Yella

Artists- Ice-Cube, MC Ren and Easy-E

Date of release- August 8, 1988

Label- Priority

Genre- Rap and Hip Hop 

Straight outta Compton was the debut album by the American hip-hop group N.W.A, released August 8, 1988 under the record label Priority. The producer of the album was Dr.Dre and co-produced by DJ Yella.(1) The albums song were created by the artists them selves including Ice-Cube and MC Ren, The lyrics were to express the difficult live of the people that lived in Compton, California showing the reality of how bad things were. At the time many people thought this album glamorised Black-on-Black crime so it suffered a lot of criticism from the public (2).  Straight Outta Compton redefined the direction of hip hop music, which has lead to the modern hip hop music today, with the gangster lifestyle becoming its driving force (3).  This album was one of the pioneering factors, which has created the type of hip-hop music of the modern era. This album has become revolutionary, as it wasn’t afraid to show the negative of the everyday lives of people from poorer dominantly black regions such as Compton. Previously rap music weren’t such a huge phenomenon, mainly party raps or celebration raps. This album also aloud future rappers to become recognised such as, Snoop Dogg and Eminem both found and produced by Dr.Dre, which without the success and influence of N.W.A would have never of happened (4). The album was recorded in a traditional way in a recording studio at Priority Record, and the production was seen as low-budget, with it being mostly DJ scratches and a drum machines, (5) 

David Bowie- Honky Dory
Producer- Gus Dudgeon
Date of Release- 17 December 1971
Label- RCA Records
Genre- Glam Rock

Honky Dory was Bowie's fourth album and is described as having a kaleidoscopic array of pop style, tied together with Bowie's sense of vision. With Trevor Bolder as the new base player Hunky Dory was the first production featuring all the members of the band that would become known the following year as Ziggy Stardust's Spiders From Mars.(6) David Bowie's Forth and most critically acclaimed album at the time released a new style of Bowie the world was not use too featuring singles like Changes it was set to revolutionise the music world.Supported by the single "Changes", the album scored generally favourable reviews and sold reasonably well on its initial release, without being a major success. Melody Maker called it "the most inventive piece of song-writing to have appeared on record in a considerable time", while NME described it as Bowie "at his brilliant best". (7) In 1998, Q magazine readers voted Hunky Dory the 43rd greatest album of all time, while in 2000 the same magazine placed it at number 16 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003, the album was ranked 107th on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.(6)

Album Name: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Producer: George Martin
Artist: The Beatles
Year: June 1^st 1967


Genre: Rock
The album began recording the album on the 1^st February 1967. The recording at EMI’s Abbey Road Studio Two on the basic rhythm track, with Paul McCartney and George Harrison on guitars. McCartney was using the bass, rather, just being on the microphone like he usually did during the recording of The Beatles previous albums. The Beatles overdubbed orchestral pieces over most tracks on the album and even overdubbed their voices as well. Ken Townsend invented a process for automatically double-tracking, which re-records a sound, milliseconds apart and placing them on a new track to give it greater depth Sgt. Pepper is seen as the most important rock & roll album ever made, an unsurpassed adventure in concept, sound, song writing, cover art and studio technology by the greatest rock & roll group of all time. The 13 tracks on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band are the pinnacle of the Beatles' eight years as recording artists (8).




































References.

Dimary et al, RD, 2011. 1001 Albums you must hear before you die. 5th ed. London: Cassell illustrated.  (1) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_Outta_Compton (2)

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/aug/14/nwa-straight-outta-compton-mainstream (3)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N.W.A  (4)

http://www.allmusic.com/album/straight-outta-compton-mw0000653426 (5)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunky_Dory (6)

Carr, Roy; Murray, Charles Shaar (1981). David Bowie: An Illustrated Record. New York: Avon Books. pp. 7–11. (7) 

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/beatles-sgt-pepper-song (8)