Firestarters: 10 songs that invented a new genre of music
Genres don’t exist in a vacuum. As much as people have tried to pioneer their own genres and proclaim them as loud as they can, nothing really turns into a social movement until the rest of the world hears your work and decides to follow your lead. It’s never an easy feat for someone to pull off, but once fans heard songs from the likes of Black Sabbath, they knew that they were going to make something a lot more adventurous.
Then again, were all these artists thinking they were making the next movement in rock and roll? Probably not. Even though there are the makings of new genres peppered throughout every one of these songs, the blueprint wouldn’t be seen until a few years later when fans started to see them for the game-changers that they truly were.
If you look at the charts when these songs dropped, many people were still perplexed about what the hell they were even listening to. Now, when people aren’t looking at the forest for the trees, they see the records that would one day become synonymous with everything from metal to punk to the beginnings of progressive rock as well.
Despite many artists running away from their biggest hits or trying to minimise their involvement in developing a whole new genre, they should get the credit for taking music to a different place once they got behind their instruments. Is music a better place for these genres existing? That’s really in the ear of the beholder, but one thing we all can admit was that after these tracks, things were never going to be quite the same anymore.
10 songs that invented a genre:
10. ‘Rapper’s Delight’ – Sugarhill Gang (Hip-Hop)
By the end of the 1970s, it was basically curtains for most of disco music. As much as it may have lit up dancefloors, the oversaturation of everyone in the world trying their hand at boogie became far too cringy for people to actually take seriously anymore. There had to be some other way around just busting a groove, and once Sugarhill Gang interpolated Chic’s ‘Good Times’ for ‘Rapper’s Delight’, a new phase of music was born.
Although most people didn’t know what to think of a bunch of random guys talking in rhythm to the beat, this was the beginning of what hip-hop would become. The traces of disco are still all over this song, but being able to rap for this long and still keep it entertaining not only introduced the world to rap but the concept of freestyling as a whole.
Sure, their rhymes were primitive by today’s standards of Lupe Fiasco or Kendrick Lamar, but the overall vibe wasn’t about being the most competent on the mic. It was about keeping the groove and good vibes flowing, and that groove hasn’t stopped since.
9. ‘The House of the Rising Sun’ – The Animals (Folk rock)
Most rock stars of the 1950s didn’t bother themselves with writing the most complicated songs in the world. Even though Chuck Berry is one of the greatest lyricists in rock history, it’s not like he was trying to rewrite Shakespeare when writing a song like ‘My Ding-A-Ling’. The Animals had a bit of a different angle when making their hits, and when Eric Burdon found the song ‘The House of The Rising Sun’, he created a folksy marriage made in heaven.
Since Bob Dylan was still brandishing an acoustic guitar, this was the first time folk and rock would congeal together, complete with Burdon’s amazing booming voice. Although most of the world followed Dylan’s lead by bringing jangle into their songs, Burdon was the first one who proved there was a market for this kind of song.
Considering they broke down the door, it wasn’t as hard of a pill for people to swallow once The Byrds came out with jangly guitars playing their takes on Dylan tunes. Rock and roll could be made for parties and disposable when it wanted to, but once it touched on serious subjects, there was a whole new world of possibilities.
8. ‘Hot Love’ – T Rex (Glam rock)
The fashions of an era like the 1960s don’t fade away that easily. As much as people may have been waking up from the acid-soaked fever dream of the decade, just as many people were looking to embrace that kind of campy flair for rock and roll. David Bowie was certainly the reigning king of glamorous rock and roll, but the first true monarch of the genre was Marc Bolan when he came out with T Rex.
Despite being known as a stylish folk rock act, ‘Hot Love’ was the first time Bolan embraced the glam aesthetic, playing the role of that traditional glitter-soaked king with a Les Paul in his hand. Glam is only as good as its visual, though, and Bolan’s performance on Top of the Pops was the stuff of legend, introducing the world to what true androgyny could look like given the right circumstances.
Many people were appalled to see something so flamboyant, but this was just the fashion Little Richard had hinted at taken to its further conclusion. There was still room for Ziggy Stardust later, but the glamorous aliens of the genre crashlanded a few years ahead of him.
7. ‘There She Goes’ – The La’s (Britpop)
The La’s were always going to be a band out of time. As much as Lee Mavers had a unique knack for melody on every one of their songs, there were only so many places that you could take that music in an era that was about to be dominated by alternative rock and grunge. Despite dating Nirvana by a few years, ‘There She Goes’ had a sunshine-soaked melody that felt tailor-made for the Britpop movement.
Although Mavers was never a fan of how the final product turned out, this amazing slice of power pop would be the template for what many songwriters would do in the next few years, one of which being bandmate John Power with the band Cast. There are definitely some differences between The La’s and classic Britpop, but for any aspiring songwriter in England around 1995, you either went in one of two directions.
Either you wanted to be the next Ian Brown or Lee Mavers, and Brown was already more inclined to adapt to the sound of dance music. Mavers did it all with just the power of songwriting, and with tracks like this, he couldn’t really be touched.
6. ‘Rebel Girl’ – Bikini Kill (Riot Grrl)
Punk rock has always been about rebelling against whatever is keeping you down. Whether pop punk bands rallied against their parents or The Clash talked about the injustices of the world, no oppressor was safe when the right punk rocker got a guitar in their hands. This was not just a male-dominated world, and with a rock scene getting increasingly stale by the minute, Kathleen Hanna figured the best way to counteract everything was to play as loud as possible.
Since most of the hardcore punk scenes severely lacked women, ‘Rebel Girl’ was the first time most people got to hear women sing about exclusively female topics. Even though Hanna would tell you that she was far from the greatest musician in the world, it was more about what she was saying than anything else.
The model for the riot-grrl was probably someone like Patti Smith, but in terms of the genre’s sound, ‘Rebel Girl’ walked so a band like Sleater-Kinney could sprint later.
5. ‘Theme from Shaft’ – Isaac Hayes (Disco)
The smooth sounds are most likely never going to go out of style. Regardless of how you feel about the bedroom anthems of yesteryear, no one can deny that every singer who touched a mic in the genre had the kind of silky texture in their voice that made it impossible not to listen to them. Ray Charles helped us feel pain, and Marvin Gaye helped us take a look at how we were treating the world, but Isaac Hayes got us all to dance, and the rockers of the world never forgave him for it.
Although Shaft is a fairly gone blaxploitation movie, the soundtrack was the true start of what would become disco. Some were still calling it soul, but as soon as those syncopated sixteenth notes started on the hi-hat, you knew that this was meant for dancefloors around the world instead of just decent background music.
Albeit most of the songs afterwards got a clubbing from the rockers of the world, but it’s not the music’s fault that fans couldn’t get down. Times were changing, and there’s a good chance that Nile Rodgers was paying close attention once he heard those opening bars.
4. ‘Monkey Gone to Heaven’ – Pixies (Grunge)
Grunge is probably one of the few genres of music that has been mythologised to a fault. The artists in question might be glad to have spoken to millions of disenfranchised kids, but they would be the first ones to tell you that they shouldn’t have been worshipped like gods among men by any stretch. If anything, the ones who actually started the aesthetic for grunge started a few years before the 1990s kicked off, and as it stands, Pixies still haven’t the credit for it.
Black Francis will probably tell you that the band was just making decent rock music, but the structure of ‘Monkey Gone to Heaven’ is still the template for every post-grunge song. By starting off soft and bringing the chorus in with a loud bang, this song could be the template for legends like Nirvana, Soundgarden, and (to a much lesser extent) Bush.
Pixies were never meant to be everyone’s favourite rock band, but if you’ve so much as sang along to any grunge song, you probably owe them a few royalties.
3. ‘Blind’ – Korn (Nu metal)
So where do we begin when talking about nu-metal? Do you start at the beginning of rap-rock with ‘Walk This Way’ between Aerosmith and Run-DMC or do you skip to ‘Bring the Noise’ with Anthrax and Public Enemy? While Rage Against the Machine were the true originators of rap and metal under one roof, they don’t deserve that fate as the originator. No, the core ethos of nu-metal was defined by pain, and Korn stormed out of the gate, ready to unleash their internal demons on ‘Blind’.
Although most fans didn’t know what they were listening to, Jonathan Davis went from a blood-soaked scream to his soft little whispers, which was the beginning of what people thought of when they heard nu metal. The massive rap flows hadn’t been adopted just yet, but Davis’s vocal cadence alongside Fieldy’s borderline non-existent bass tone made everything a lot heavier for other bands to play around with.
Whether the rest of the world is owed an apology or not, a song like ‘Blind’ paved the way for every whiny kid talking about their problems in JNCO jeans. It’s not exactly something to be proud of, but if you get one Linkin Park for every Limp Bizkit, it’s actually a pretty fair deal.
2. ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ – The Beatles (Psychedelic rock)
If you’re looking for a moment when psychedelic rock started, people normally go to 1967, when the Summer of Love kicked off. The music business was still in black and white for the most part, and once June hit that summer, it felt like the skies had parted, and everything was decked out in neon-coloured threads, with people suddenly preaching about free love and happiness. The Beatles already had credit for the best album of that year with Sgt Pepper, but John Lennon the psychedelic bible when putting together ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’.
Even if you didn’t know that the lyrics came from Timothy Leary, the entire song gives the listener the impression of an acid trip without ever having to go on one. Complete with backwards guitar, tape loops, and the sound of Lennon sounding like he’s flying on the other side of consciousness, most fans would soon be adopting their own kinds of sounds, from playing everything backwards as well as forwards to making white noise to simulate a drug trip gone wrong.
For a band that was known as one of the leading forces in pop music, The Beatles were intentionally trying to fuck up their sound, and if this is what that sounded like, one could only imagine what lay ahead.
1. ‘Black Sabbath’ – Black Sabbath (Metal)
Almost every seed of rock and roll traces back to the blues. Although the psychedelic sounds of the 1960s were slowly burning themselves out, the British Blues Boom never went anywhere, with acts like Cream and John Mayall making their own takes on blues standards half the time. There were a few shades darker than just blue, and Tony Iommi turned everything pitch black when he hit on the tritone in ‘Black Sabbath’.
With lyrics lifted from a dream Geezer Butler had, the tale of a man being stalked by a demon as the sound of a ferocious guitar played ominously in the background was the beginning of metal. Granted, different metal variations could be found on this track alone, either signalling the rise of doom metal from the 1990s or the sounds of stoner rock with acts like Kyuss later down the line.
Sabbath would end up accidentally inventing other genres like thrash on tracks like ‘Symptom of the Universe’, but up until that point, hearing something this heavy gave kids permission to dream of making it big with the scariest riffs imaginable.
