LA CHRONIQUE D’OLIVIER NUC – A city of jazz and musicals, “The Big Apple” also continues to be an undisputed bastion of rock’n’roll.
Rock ‘n’ roll was born in the South of the United States, it is a heard matter. It was only below the Mason-Dixie Line that these nuptials could flourish between the blues of the cotton fields sung by the slaves and the country inherited from the folklore of European immigrants. In contact with large cities, its initial and primitive form hardened. Electrified with the arrival in the city, rock’n’roll turned into rock, and New York quickly became its stronghold. It was already the city of jazz and great musicals, it was not going to miss this opportunity to make history. Music merged with the street, via doo-wop, and infiltrated the art world.
Andy Warhol was one of its sponsors. By taking under his wing the training of Lou Reed and John Cale baptized Velvet Underground in homage to a pulp by Michael Leigh, the artist made a date. He was already receiving Bob Dylan at the Factory. From now on, all New York rock’n’roll would drink from this intriguing and disturbing source. Lou Reed has redefined the urban lexicon. England or the West Coast might well be teeming with melodies, words and attitude would settle for a long time in the megalopolis of the East Coast. Before being recovered and conceptualized by the English, punk was born in the slums of the Lower East Side.
Launched in a seedy, anti-glamorous old country club (CBGB’s), Television, Ramones, Patti Smith or Blondie would eventually dominate the music scene. Their ramifications continue to germinate, almost forty years later.
The breeding ground for creativity
David Byrne has become a kind of godfather of arty rock. A teacher who looks like a crazy scientist, who inspires many young groups. The Foals owe him a lot, as does Vampire Weekend, whose authorship he shares with Paul Simon, another researcher inseparable from this geography. Patti Smith continues to fascinate rockers today for her freedom and strength. In the 1980s, the emergence of university radio stations allowed a certain decentralization. A group of Southerners like REM has proven that there is no need to live in one of the big cities of the North to have a career. Punk rock had shown that we could make ourselves heard beyond musical competence or network. Yet they are still New Yorkers with arty ambitions, Sonic Youth, who redefined the aesthetic of the rock group at the end of this decade, inspiring the provincials of Pixies or Nirvana to launch their careers. In New York, destinies come and go as quickly as one store is replaced by another. And the city did not wait for media attention to be the breeding ground for musical creativity. In perpetual change, the city constantly renews its offer.
After having been put in stiff competition successively by the disco waves in the late 1970s, hip-hop in the 1980s and electro in the 1990s, guitar rock started to roar again at the turn of the century thanks to Strokes or Interpol, out of the New York cellars in time to gain the attention of a new audience. For academics of Vampire Weekend as with the contemplatives of The National, the city has been a source of inspiration in solid gold. The joint release of their new albums is irrefutable proof, while the heroes of the rebirth (The Strokes) are already beginning to decline.
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