Musical collective is a phrase used to describe a group of musicians in which membership is flexible and creative control is shared. Such entities have transitioned from the traditional hierarchical configuration that features either a frontman (e.g. The Cure

The Cure

The Cure are an English rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex in 1976. The band has experienced several line-up changes, with frontman, vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter Robert Smith being the only constant member...

's Robert Smith

Robert Smith (musician)

Robert James Smith is an English musician. He is the lead singer, guitar player and principal songwriter of the rock band The Cure, and its only constant member since its founding in 1976...

, or Trent Reznor

Trent Reznor

Michael Trent Reznor is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, record producer, and leader of industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. Reznor is also a member of How to Destroy Angels alongside his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, and Atticus Ross. He was previously associated with bands Option 30,...

 of Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails

Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...

), or a plurality of band members in tension for dominance (e.g. Louise Post

Louise Post

Louise Lightner Post is the lead vocalist and guitarist for alternative rock group Veruca Salt. She is a graduate of Barnard College, holding a Bachelor of Arts degree in English.-Musical career:...

 & Nina Gordon

Nina Gordon

Nina Rachel Shapiro Gordon is an American rock singer, and is the co-founder of the band Veruca Salt, having written the songs "Seether" and "Volcano Girls"...

 of Veruca Salt

Veruca Salt (band)

Veruca Salt is an alternative rock band founded in 1993 in Chicago, Illinois. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included vocalist-guitarist Louise Post. Guitarist Stephen Fitzpatrick has been with the band since 1999 and drummer Kellii Scott has worked with the group on and off since 1999...

, or The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

' John Lennon

John Lennon

John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

 & Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney

Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...

.) Collectives are seen as an alternative to more ego-driven, combative paradigms of group music-making.

Musical collectives allow for flexibility in their rosters. As such, most of the members are free to rotate in and out of the line-up. They may exist in almost any genre of music, although they have been especially prominent in indie rock

Indie rock

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...

 and hip hop

Hip hop

Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...

.

A musical collective is distinct from a musicians collective, such as the London Musicians Collective

London Musicians Collective

The London Musicians' Collective is a cultural charity based in London, England devoted to the promotion of contemporary, experimental and improvised music...

 which is an organisation with more general aims and larger membership.

Types

There are two slightly different types of musical collectives. Although both types revolve around collaboration between member artists, the main difference is in how the music is credited.

In one type, the collective is centred around a record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

 which releases music by its member bands. Although musicians in the collective collaborate with each other, the resulting albums are always credited to a specific band or artist within the collective, rather than to the collective itself. For example, artists associated with the Elephant 6

The Elephant Six Collective

The Elephant 6 Recording Company is a collective of American musicians who spawned many notable independent bands of the 1990s, including The Apples in Stereo, The Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, Beulah, Elf Power, Of Montreal, and Circulatory System.-Foundation:The collective was...

 record label regularly contributed to each other's albums, and sometimes launched one-off side projects featuring varying combinations of musicians from its member bands - however, Elephant 6 itself was the label, and was never credited as the band name on an associated album.

In the other type, the collective itself functions as a band, releasing both albums by its individual member artists and albums credited directly to the collective as an entity in its own right, such as Broken Social Scene

Broken Social Scene

Broken Social Scene is a Canadian indie rock band, a musical collective including as few as six and as many as nineteen members, formed in 1999 by Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning. Most of its members currently play in various other groups and solo projects, mainly based around the city of Toronto...

. Like the label type, however, individual artists' albums still commonly feature collaborations with other members of the collective.

Also, almost as an in-between, collectives are appearing that have the look and idea of a record label but are centred around individuals. This has been fueled by the rise of the internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 and home recording which has allowed a punk DIY ethic

DIY ethic

The DIY ethic refers to the ethic of self-sufficiency through completing tasks oneself as opposed to having others who are more experienced or able complete them for one's behalf. It promotes the idea that an ordinary person can learn to do more than he or she thought was possible...

 to flourish.

Notable collectives

• Acappella
  Acappella (group)
  Acappella is an all-male Contemporary Christian vocal group founded in 1982 by Keith Lancaster, who has variously played the role of singer, songwriter and producer throughout the group's history...
  
  
• Ambiances Magnetiques
  Ambiances Magnétiques
  Ambiances Magnétiques is a non-profit, Canadian musical collective, which was formed in 1982 by a group of independent musicians and producers from Montreal. The entity was formed out of necessity: the avant-garde tastes of the members — which include jazz, classical, folk, and rock —...
  
  
• AMM (group)
  AMM (group)
  AMM are an important British free improvisation group, founded in London, England in 1965.AMM have never been well known to the general public, but have been incredibly influential on the field of improvised music...
  
  
• Amon Düül I
• Amungus
  Amungus
  Amungus is Robby Takac of the Goo Goo Dolls, one of the most successful American rock bands of today, and Brian Schulmeister, co-founder of Slender Fungus Multimedia, an eclectic multimedia design company...
  
  
• anticon.
• Arcade Fire
• Archive
  Archive (band)
  Archive is a musical group based in London, England, whose music spans electronic, trip-hop, avant-garde, post-rock and progressive rock. Over their sixteen-year history, the band has released eight studio albums and enjoyed established success throughout Europe, while remaining little-known in...
  
  
• Architecture in Helsinki
  Architecture in Helsinki
  Architecture in Helsinki is an Australian indie pop band which consists of Cameron Bird, Gus Franklin, Jamie Mildren, Sam Perry, and Kellie Sutherland...
  
  
• Arrogant Sons of Bitches
• Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution
  Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution
  Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution, or BOTAR, is a musical collective including influences from ska, punk, classical, and eastern European music, entirely in an acoustic format...
  
  
• Black Mountain
  Black Mountain (band)
  Black Mountain is a Canadian rock band from Vancouver, British Columbia. The band is composed of Stephen McBean, Amber Webber, Matt Camirand, Jeremy Schmidt and Joshua Wells.-Overview:...
  
  
• Blocks Recording Club
  Blocks Recording Club
  Blocks Recording Club is a Canadian co-operative of musicians, which serves as both a collaborative artist community and a record label for its member artists.The label's name may also be cited graphically as □□□□□□ rather than the word "Blocks"...
  
  
• Bomb the Music Industry!
  Bomb The Music Industry!
  Bomb the Music Industry! is band from Baldwin, Nassau County, New York. They write, produce, record, and distribute all of their music under the leadership of songwriter and producer Jeff Rosenstock....
  
  
• Bran Van 3000
  Bran Van 3000
  Bran Van 3000 is an electronica collective from Manhattan, New York City, New York and Montreal, Quebec. Founded by DJ James Di Salvio and E.P...
  
  
• Broken Social Scene
  Broken Social Scene
  Broken Social Scene is a Canadian indie rock band, a musical collective including as few as six and as many as nineteen members, formed in 1999 by Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning. Most of its members currently play in various other groups and solo projects, mainly based around the city of Toronto...
  
  
• Bugz in the Attic
  Bugz in the Attic
  Bugz in the Attic is a collective of DJs and producers based in West London, who are prominent in broken beat. The collective includes Orin Walters , Paul Dolby , Kaidi Tatham, Daz-I-Kue, Alex Phountzi , Cliff Scott, Mark Force, Matt Lord, and Mikey Stirton. The group also has a label, BitaSweet...
  
  
• The Cake Sale
  The Cake Sale
  The Cake Sale are a collective of mostly Irish musical artists including Swedish singer/songwriter Nina Persson of The Cardigans and Australian musician Nick Seymour of Crowded House....
  
  
• Cardboard City
• The Choir Practice
  The Choir Practice
  -External links:*...
  
  
• Crass
  Crass
  Crass are an English punk rock band that was formed in 1977, which promoted anarchism as a political ideology, way of living, and as a resistance movement. Crass popularised the seminal anarcho-punk movement of the punk subculture, and advocated direct action, animal rights, and environmentalism...
  
  
• The Damnwells
  The Damnwells
  The Damnwells are an indie rock band originally from Brooklyn, New York The band formed in 2001 and has released four full length albums, Air Stereo , Bastards of the Beat , and One Last Century...
  
  
• The Desert Sessions
  The Desert Sessions
  The Desert Sessions are a musical collective series, founded by Josh Homme in 1997. Artists such as Brant Bjork, PJ Harvey, Jeordie White The Desert Sessions are a musical collective series, founded by Josh Homme in 1997. Artists such as Brant Bjork, PJ Harvey, Jeordie White The Desert Sessions are...
  
  
• Diggin' in the Crates Crew
  Diggin' in the Crates Crew
  The Diggin' in the Crates Crew, also known as D.I.T.C., is a New York-based hip-hop collective, deriving its name from the art of seeking out records to sample for production. Its members have achieved substantial and consistent recognition in underground rap circles, often collaborating with...
  
  
• Doomtree
  Doomtree
  Doomtree is a hip hop collective based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Members of Doomtree bring various bases of knowledge and musical backgrounds together to create alternative-influenced rap and hip-hop music. Nearly as prominent as the influence of hip-hop in their music is that of punk, and their...
  
  
• Dufay Collective
  Dufay Collective
  The Dufay Collective is an early-music ensemble from the United Kingdom, specializing in Medieval and Renaissance music. Founded in 1987, it was named after the Renaissance composer Guillaume Dufay. The group is directed by William Lyons...
  
  
• Dungeon Family
  Dungeon Family
  The Dungeon Family is a hip hop/R&B/soul musical collective, based in Atlanta, Georgia and specializing in Southern hip hop with heavy funk and soul influences. The group derives its name from "The Dungeon", the name given to record producer Rico Wade's basement studio where many of the early...
  
  
• Early Day Miners
  Early Day Miners
  Early Day Miners are a band from southern Indiana, United States who released records on the Bloomington, Indiana based label Secretly Canadian. In September 2009 the band had released seven full-length records....
  
  
• The Elephant 6 Collective
• Fence Collective
• F-IRE Collective
  F-IRE Collective
  F-IRE Collective is a creative music community founded by Barak Schmool in London, United Kingdom. Additionally, the Collective also has a record label....
  
  
• Godspeed You! Black Emperor
  Godspeed You! Black Emperor
  Godspeed You! Black Emperor is a Canadian post-rock band which originated from Montreal, Quebec in 1994...
  
  
• Grateful Dead
  Grateful Dead
  The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
  
  
• The Hidden Cameras
  The Hidden Cameras
  The Hidden Cameras are a Canadian indie pop band. Fronted by singer-songwriter Joel Gibb, the band consists of a varying roster of musicians who play what Gibb once described as "gay church folk music"...
  
  
• Hello! Project
  Hello! Project
  is the umbrella name for all female idol Japanese pop recording artists collective that are under contract with the Up-Front Group. The "mothership" group of Hello! Project is the super-group Morning Musume. Hello! Project's current leader is Risa Niigaki, the leader of Morning Musume...
  
  
• Henri Faberge and the Adorables
  Henri Fabergé and the Adorables
  Henri Fabergé and the Adorables are a Canadian indie rock band formed in 2005 from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.-History:Henri Fabergé and the Adorables formed in 2005 and is a musical collective including members of The Bicycles, Born Ruffians, Spitfires & Mayflowers, Woodhands, The Rural Alberta...
  
  
• Hieroglyphics
  Hieroglyphics (band)
  Hieroglyphics, also known as the Hieroglyphics Crew and Hiero, are an American underground hip hop collective based in Oakland, California. The collective was founded in the early-1990s by rapper Del tha Funkee Homosapien...
  
  
• Hillsong United (band)
  Hillsong United (band)
  The Hillsong United band is an Australian praise and worship band that originated as a part of Hillsong Church. The band tours the world, performing at the various Hillsong church locations as well as general concert venues. They compose the songs for their own performances and for the other...
  
  
• I'm from Barcelona
  I'm from Barcelona
  I'm from Barcelona is a pop group from Jönköping, Sweden, best known for its 29 band members and eclectic mix of instruments such as clarinets, saxophones, flutes, trumpets, banjos, accordions, kazoos, guitars, drums, and keyboards among others...
  
  
• The Jewelled Antler Collective
• Lansing-Dreiden
  Lansing-Dreiden
  Lansing-Dreiden is an American band and art collective based in New York City.Lansing-Dreiden was founded in Miami, Florida. Their body of work includes music, multimedia artwork , and the literary journal Death Notice...
  
  
• Living Legends
  Living Legends
  Living Legends is a rap group composed of eight hip hop artists from California. Beginning in the early 1990s, the crew garnered a following by recording, promoting, and performing their music independently...
  
  
• The Mountain Goats
  The Mountain Goats
  The Mountain Goats is an American indie rock band formed in Claremont, CA by singer-songwriter John Darnielle. For many years, the sole member of the Mountain Goats was Darnielle himself, despite the plural moniker....
  
  
• Native Tongues Posse
  Native Tongues Posse
  The Native Tongues is a collective of late 1980s and early 1990s hip-hop artists known for their positive-minded, good-natured Afrocentric lyrics, and for pioneering the use of eclectic sampling and later jazz-influenced beats. Its principal members are the Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, and A Tribe...
  
  
• The New Pornographers
  The New Pornographers
  The New Pornographers is a Canadian indie rock band formed in 1997 in Vancouver, British Columbia.-History:The band's first four albums each ranked in the top 40 on The Village Voices Pazz & Jop year-end poll of hundreds of music reviewers. From 2000 to 2006, either a New Pornographers' album or a...
  
  
• No Neck Blues Band
• The Ocean Collective
  The Ocean Collective
  The Ocean is an experimental metal band from Berlin, Germany. Their work combines elements of progressive metal and electronic soundscapes, occasionally incorporating strings to create their aggressive post-metal sound. The band often describes its sound as "ambient soundtrack doomrock".- History...
  
  
• Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All
• Ozomatli
  Ozomatli
  Ozomatli is a seven to ten piece band playing primarily Latin, hip hop, and rock music, formed in 1995 in Los Angeles. They are known both for their vocal activist viewpoints and their wide array of musical styles - including salsa, jazz, funk, reggae, rap, and others.In a 2007 NPR interview, band...
  
  
• Parliament-Funkadelic
  Parliament-Funkadelic
  Parliament-Funkadelic is a funk, soul and rock music collective headed by George Clinton. Their style has been dubbed P-Funk. Collectively the group has existed under various names since the 1960s and has been known for top-notch musicianship, politically charged lyrics, outlandish concept albums...
  
  
• Piano Magic
  Piano Magic
  Piano Magic is a musical collective formed in the summer of 1996 by Glen Johnson, Dominic Chennell, and Dick Rance in London, England. Their sound has been described as ambient pop, post-rock, indietronica, coldwave, dark wave and ghostrock...
  
  
• The Polyphonic Spree
  The Polyphonic Spree
  The Polyphonic Spree is a choral symphonic pop rock band from Dallas, Texas that was formed in 2000 by Tim DeLaughter. The band's sound relies on a variety of vocal and instrumental color by featuring a choir, flute, trumpet, trombone, violin, viola, cello, percussion, piano, guitars, bass, drums,...
  
  
• Reindeer Section
• Silk Road Project
  Silk Road Project
  Silk Road Project, Inc. is a not-for-profit organization, initiated by acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 1998, promoting collaboration among artists and institutions, promoting multicultural artistic exchange, and studying the ebb and flow of ideas among different cultures along the Silk Road. The...
  
  
• Soulquarians
  Soulquarians
  The Soulquarians is a neo soul and hip hop-informed musical collective with members from Philadelphia, New York, Detroit, Richmond, Brooklyn, Chicago, Dallas, and Oakland. The collective formed during the late 1990s, continuing into the early 2000s, and produced several well-received albums...
  
  
• So Solid Crew
  So Solid Crew
  So Solid Crew is an electronic and urban musical collective from South London, England, whose hits include "Oh No " and "21 Seconds", the latter reaching number one in the UK Singles Chart in August 2001. Another hit, "They Don't Know", reached number three in November 2001 and "Haters" got to...
  
  
• Streetlight Manifesto
  Streetlight Manifesto
  Streetlight Manifesto is an American punk band with many influences from different genres including ska, from New Brunswick, New Jersey fronted by Tomas Kalnoky....
  
  
• Subjective Collective
  Subjective Collective
  The Subjective Collective is a musical collective consisting of several bands and recording projects located in Greensboro, North Carolina. Many are of the indie rock genre, sharing an experimental thread...
  
  
• Sunburned Hand of the Man
  Sunburned Hand of the Man
  Sunburned Hand of the Man are a band from Massachusetts that formed in 1997 from the remnants of the Boston psychedelic punk trio Shit Spangled Banner....
  
  
• Sweatshop Union
  Sweatshop Union
  Sweatshop Union is a Canadian hip hop collective formed in 2000 when four politically minded rap acts—Dirty Circus, Pigeon Hole, Kyprios and Innocent Bystander —came together "to create a powerful, distinctive voice", and to produce their first album, which was published in 2001.Known for an...
  
  
• Tanakh
  Tanakh (band)
  Tanakh is the name of a musical collective from Richmond, Virginia as well as a reference to the music produced by the group. The collective was formed in 2000 by its primary songwriter, producer and recording engineer Jesse Poe.- Background :...
  
  
• Trummerflora
• Willard Grant Conspiracy
  Willard Grant Conspiracy
  Willard Grant Conspiracy is an alt-country band currently based near Palmdale, California, USA.Originally formed by Robert Fisher and Paul Austin in 1995 in Boston, Massachusetts, the band operates as a collective, with vocalist Fisher the only permanent member. Up to thirty other musicians...
  
  
• The World/Inferno Friendship Society
  The World/Inferno Friendship Society
  The World/Inferno Friendship Society is a band from Brooklyn, New York. Its style merges punk, soul, klezmer and jazz, while its collective membership features horns, piano and guitar. The ensemble has over 30 members, including a former member of Dexys Midnight Runners. About nine or ten members...
  
  
• Wu-Tang Clan
  Wu-Tang Clan
  The Wu-Tang Clan is a hip-hop group from Staten Island that consists of RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killa, and the late Ol' Dirty Bastard. They are frequently joined by fellow childhood friend Cappadonna, a quasi member of the group...
  
  
• Undertow Music
  Undertow Music
  Undertow began in 1996 as a collective of independent artists, musicians, filmmakers, designers and creative managers sharing resources, ideas, and a love of music. Undertow Music operates offices in St...
  
  
• Un Drame Musical Instantane
  Un Drame Musical Instantané
  Un Drame Musical Instantané, since its creation in 1976, featuring Jean-Jacques Birgé, Bernard Vitet and Francis Gorgé, has decided to promote collective musical creation, co-signing their albums, which they consider as artworks in themselves, or their live shows which they try to renew every time...
  
  

See also

• Collective
  Collective
  A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together on a specific project to achieve a common objective...
  
  
• Artist collective
  Artist collective
  An artist collective is an initiative that is the result of a group of artists working together, usually under their own management, towards shared aims...
  
  
• Leaderless resistance
  Leaderless resistance
  Leaderless resistance, or phantom cell structure, is a political resistance strategy in which small, independent groups , including individuals , challenge an established adversary such as a government. Leaderless resistance can encompass anything from non-violent disruption and civil disobedience...
  
   - Collectives often share the anarchic streak associated with such entities.

External links

• All Inclusive CBC.ca examination of the proliferation of musical collectives
• Collective Souls This Magazine
  This Magazine
  This Magazine is an independent alternative Canadian political magazine. It was launched "by a gang of school activists" in 1966 as This Magazine is About Schools, a journal covering political issues in the education system...
  
  article on musical collectives