Planet Rock (song)
Encyclopedia
"Planet Rock" is a 1982 song by Afrika Bambaataa
Afrika Bambaataa
Afrika Bambaataa is an American DJ from the South Bronx, New York who was instrumental in the early development of hip hop throughout the 1980s. Afrika Bambaataa is one of the three originators of break-beat deejaying, and is respectfully known as the "Grandfather" and the Amen Ra of Universal...

 & the Soulsonic Force
Soulsonic Force
The Soulsonic Force are an American electro-funk and hip-hop ensemble led by Afrika Bambaataa who helped establish hip-hop in the early 1980s with songs such as "Planet Rock"...

. In the background and hooks featured Marvella Murray, Yvette Murray, Melissa Johnson and Sandra Wheeler. Although it was only a minor hit in the US, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, and UK, it helped change the foundations of hip-hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

 and dance music
Dance music
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...

. It is credited with developing the electro style, building on the work of Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...

 and Yellow Magic Orchestra
Yellow Magic Orchestra
Sakamoto first worked with Hosono as a member of his live band in 1976, while Takahashi recruited Sakamoto to produce his debut solo recording in 1977 following the split of the Sadistic Mika Band...

, and helped pave the way for other genre
Music genre
A music genre is a categorical and typological construct that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other types of music...

s such as techno
Techno
Techno is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in Detroit, Michigan in the United States during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988...

, house
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...

, and trance. In November 2004, the
"Planet Rock" placed at #237 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

's
list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and #10 in About.com
About.com
About.com is an online source for original information and advice. It is written in English, and is aimed primarily at North Americans. It is owned by The New York Times Company....

's Top 100 Rap Songs. "Planet Rock" peaked at number four on the soul chart and number forty-eight on the Hot 100, and went to number three on the dance charts.

Background and recording

Produced
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

 by Arthur Baker
Arthur Baker (musician)
Arthur Baker is an American record producer and DJ best known for his work with hip hop artists like Afrika Bambaataa, Planet Patrol, and the British group New Order.-Early career:...

, "Planet Rock" blends synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

 and vocoder
Vocoder
A vocoder is an analysis/synthesis system, mostly used for speech. In the encoder, the input is passed through a multiband filter, each band is passed through an envelope follower, and the control signals from the envelope followers are communicated to the decoder...

 sounds with breakbeat
Breakbeat
In 1992, a new style called "jungalistic hardcore" emerged, and for many ravers it was too funky to dance to. Josh Lawford of Ravescene prophesied that the breakbeat was "the death-knell of rave" because the ever changing drumbeat patterns of breakbeat music didn't allow for the same zoned out,...

ing. It was influenced by electropop pioneers Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...

 and Yellow Magic Orchestra
Yellow Magic Orchestra
Sakamoto first worked with Hosono as a member of his live band in 1976, while Takahashi recruited Sakamoto to produce his debut solo recording in 1977 following the split of the Sadistic Mika Band...

 (YMO), funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

 pioneer George Clinton
George Clinton (funk musician)
George Clinton is an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, and music producer and the principal architect of P-Funk. He was the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s, and launched a solo career in 1981. He has been cited as one of the foremost...

, and artists such as Gary Numan
Gary Numan
Gary Numan is an English singer, composer, and musician, most widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars". His signature sound consisted of heavy synthesizer hooks fed through guitar effects pedals.Numan is considered a pioneer of commercial electronic music...

. In particular, its melody resembles Kraftwerk's "Trans Europe Express" (1977), while the beat resembles Kraftwerk's "Numbers" (1981) as well as YMO's "Riot in Lagos" (1980).

The record was recorded in the NYC upper eastside Intergalactic Studios, a popular site for NYC clubscene productions. Toward the end of the scheduled recording session, NYC music clubscene fixtures DJ David Azarc, soundman Jim Toth, and promoter Tom Goodkind—all from the Peppermint Lounge—asked Arthur to please hurry. The three had scheduled the next recording session for a band that would become the Washington Squares
Washington Squares
The Washington Squares were a 1980s neo-beatnik folk revival music group. Modeled after early 1960s groups like The Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Mary, the group was named after New York City's Washington Square Park, emblematic of Greenwich Village...

. Ever accommodating, Arthur told them that things would move faster if they assisted him with the backup vocals. The voices singing "rock it don't stop it" on Planet Rock are in fact those of the Washington Squares.

Composition

The main melody
Melody
A melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity...

 of "Planet Rock" is interpolated
Interpolation (music)
Interpolation in music refers to an abrupt change in musical elements from the main theme.-In classical music:In music and musical composition, especially 20th century and later, interpolation is an abrupt change of elements, with continuation of the first idea...

 from the title track of Kraftwerk's influential album Trans-Europe Express
Trans-Europe Express (album)
Trans-Europe Express is the sixth studio album by German electronic music band Kraftwerk. Recorded in mid-1976 in Düsseldorf, Germany, the album was released in March 1977 on Kling Klang Records. The album's themes were influenced by friends who suggested writing songs about the Trans-Europ...

, while the drum pattern resembles "Numbers" from the 1981 Kraftwerk album Computer World
Computer World
Computer World is the eighth studio album by the German electronic music band Kraftwerk, released in May 1981. The album deals with the themes of the rise of computers within society. Critics see this album as a peak in the career of Kraftwerk, along with Autobahn and Trans-Europe Express...

, another popular underground club record. The borrowings eventually resulted in an out-of-court settlement between Kraftwerk and Tommy Boy Records
Tommy Boy Records
Tommy Boy Entertainment is an independent record label started in 1981 by Tom Silverman.-History:...

 head Tom Silverman
Tom Silverman
Tom Silverman is the founder, chairman and CEO of the record label Tommy Boy Records , and he is co-founder of the independent film and television company Tommy Boy Films. Silverman co-founded Dance Music Report magazine, which ran from 1978 to 1992, and he co-founded the Dance Music Hall of Fame,...

.

Afrika Bambaataa has acknowledged a debt to Kraftwerk, but has expressed that their contributions to his aesthetic have been over-emphasized. Bambaataa stated that "Kraftwerk was one part of a sound," while citing Yellow Magic Orchestra and Gary Numan as the other major influences on his work. Yellow Magic Orchestra in particular was the first band to utilize the Roland TR-808
Roland TR-808
The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer was one of the first programmable drum machines . Introduced by the Roland Corporation in early 1980, it was originally manufactured for use as a tool for studio musicians to create demos. Like earlier Roland drum machines, it does not sound very much like a real...

 programmable drum machine
Drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...

 in 1980, and they anticipated the beats and sounds of electro music with "Riot in Lagos" that same year.
The influence of "Planet Rock" can still be heard in hip-hop sub-genres such G-funk
G-funk
G-funk, or Gangsta-funk, is a sub-genre of hip hop music that emerged from Westcoast gangsta rap in the early 1990s. G-funk incorporates multi-layered and melodic synthesizers, slow hypnotic grooves, a deep bass, background female vocals, the extensive sampling of P-funk tunes, and a high-pitched...

 and in the work of producers such as the Neptunes
The Neptunes
The Neptunes are a record production duo consisting of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, who are credited with contributing the sound for many successful hip hop, R&B and pop artists in the late-1990s and 2000s...

, which use electro-based sounds in its productions.

Personnel

  • Engineer - Bob Rosa
    Bob Rosa
    Bob Rosa is an American record producer that has worked with artists such as Madonna, Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey and Espen Lind. One if his first recording projects was working on the track "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force in 1982....

    , Jan D. Burnett
  • Executive Producer - Tom Silverman
    Tom Silverman
    Tom Silverman is the founder, chairman and CEO of the record label Tommy Boy Records , and he is co-founder of the independent film and television company Tommy Boy Films. Silverman co-founded Dance Music Report magazine, which ran from 1978 to 1992, and he co-founded the Dance Music Hall of Fame,...

  • Mastered By - Herb Powers Jr.
  • Mixed by, Producer - Arthur Baker
  • Keyboards by John Robie
  • 7" & 12" edits by Jellybean Benitez
  • Video By - Video Mix Productions - Danny Cornyetz & Jessica Jason

Instruments

  • Roland TR-808
    Roland TR-808
    The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer was one of the first programmable drum machines . Introduced by the Roland Corporation in early 1980, it was originally manufactured for use as a tool for studio musicians to create demos. Like earlier Roland drum machines, it does not sound very much like a real...

     drum machine
    Drum machine
    A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums or other percussion instruments. They are used in a variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music...

  • Fairlight CMI
    Fairlight CMI
    The Fairlight CMI is a digital sampling synthesizer. It was designed in 1979 by the founders of Fairlight, Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie, and based on a dual-6800 microprocessor computer designed by Tony Furse in Sydney, Australia...

     Series II 8-bit sampler
    Sampler (musical instrument)
    A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...

     (orchestra hit "ORCH5")
  • Moog
    Moog Music
    Moog Music is an American company based in Asheville, North Carolina which manufactures electronic musical instruments. The current Moog Music is the second company to trade under that name.-R.A. Moog Co. and the original Moog Music:...

     Micromoog
    Micromoog
    The Micromoog is a monophonic analog synthesizer produced by Moog Music from 1975 to 1979.The Micromoog was designed by Robert Moog and Jim Scott as a scaled-down, cheaper alternative to the Minimoog. It was designed to tap into a market of musicians who wanted an introduction to synthesis, but...

     and Prophet 5 (John Robie's keyboards as stated by Arthur Baker in Sound on Sound)
  • Lexicon
    Lexicon (company)
    Lexicon is an American audio equipment manufacturing company founded in 1971 and owned by Harman International Industries. Lexicon's roots began in 1969 with the founding of American Data Sciences by MIT professor Dr...

     PCM41 for Bambaataa's "vocoder
    Vocoder
    A vocoder is an analysis/synthesis system, mostly used for speech. In the encoder, the input is passed through a multiband filter, each band is passed through an envelope follower, and the control signals from the envelope followers are communicated to the decoder...

    " sound (really tight delay setting)

Legacy

Since its release, "Planet Rock" has been a large influence on music and pop culture. In 2008, it was ranked number 21 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop. MC Common
Common (rapper)
Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. , better known by his stage name Common , is an American hip-hop artist and actor....

 cited this song as a major influence for his latest album Universal Mind Control
Universal Mind Control
-Chart positions:In its first week, Universal Mind Control sold 81,663 in the United States.As of December 31, 2008, the album has sold 211,781.- Release history :-External links:* at Metacritic*...

especially for the title track
Universal Mind Control (song)
"Universal Mind Control" is the first single released by Common from his 2008 album of the same name, Universal Mind Control. The single is produced by The Neptunes. The music video premiered on Common's official YouTube channel on October 6, 2008...

.

In the Black Star
Black Star
-In astronomy:*Dark star , a theoretical star that has a surface escape velocity that equals or exceeds the speed of light*Dark star , a theoretical star heated by dark matter annihilation in the early universe...

 cover of Slick Rick's
Slick Rick
Richard Walters , better known by his stage name Slick Rick is a Grammy-nominated English-American rapper...

 "Children's Story
Children's Story
"Children's Story" is a single by British-born American hip hop artist Slick Rick, from his album The Great Adventures of Slick Rick.-Reception:It's on the list of the top 100 rap songs, and is ranked #61 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Hip Hop....

," Mos Def criticizes a fictitious DJ for the overuse of sampling the classics. He says, "Jacked the beat from Planet Rock", notably ironic given the controversy with the similarities between the Kraftwerk single. Adding to the irony is the fact that "Children's Story" is a re-interpretation of a classic song of the same name by Slick Rick
Slick Rick
Richard Walters , better known by his stage name Slick Rick is a Grammy-nominated English-American rapper...

.

The song has been remixed by Paul Oakenfold
Paul Oakenfold
Paul Mark Oakenfold is a British record producer and a trance DJ.-Early Career: 1979–84:Paul Oakenfold's career was set to be a chef, after having hopes of becoming part of a band. He describes his early life as a "bedroom deejay" in a podcasted interview with Vancouver's 24 Hours, stating he grew...

 in album "Swordfish (soundtrack)
Swordfish (soundtrack)
Swordfish: The Album is the original soundtrack of the 2001 film Swordfish. It was produced by Paul Oakenfold under Village Roadshow and Warner Bros. and distributed through London Sire Records, Inc.- Track listing :...

" and was sampled by LL Cool J
LL Cool J
James Todd Smith , better known as LL Cool J , is an American rapper, entrepreneur, and actor...

 in the song "Control Myself
Control Myself
"Control Myself" is a song by American rapper LL Cool J from his twelfth album, Todd Smith . It was produced by Jermaine Dupri and features fellow American singer Jennifer Lopez...

".

Additionally, the song has been featured in the 2002 film Ali G Indahouse
Ali G Indahouse
Ali G Indahouse is a British comedy film directed by Mark Mylod and starring the fictional character Ali G, who is performed by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen...

in what might be the films most well known scene which features Ali G (Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Noam Baron Cohen is an English stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and voice artist. He is most widely known for his portrayal of three unorthodox fictional characters: Ali G, Borat, and Brüno...

), Ricky C (Martin Freeman
Martin Freeman
Martin John C. Freeman is an English actor. He is known for his roles as John in Love Actually, Tim Canterbury in the BBC's Golden Globe-winning comedy The Office, Arthur Dent in the film adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Dr. John Watson in Sherlock and Mr. Madden...

) and Dangerous Dave (Tony Way
Tony Way
Tony Way is an English actor, comedian, and writer, who is best known for playing various characters, in the hit BBC sketch comedy TV series Tittybangbang and playing the character Dave in the hit comedy movie, Ali G Indahouse....

) breaking into the Prime Minister's mansion and getting through a laser room by breakdancing to the room, and was used as the main theme of the 2006 basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 video game NBA 2K7
NBA 2K
The NBA 2K series is a series of basketball video games developed and released annually. Beginning in 1999, the NBA 2K series was an exclusive to the Sega Dreamcast. The series was originally published by Sega, under the label Sega Sports and is now published by 2K Sports...

as well as in the Playstation 1 game Thrasher: Skate and Destroy
Thrasher: Skate and Destroy
Thrasher Presents Skate and Destroy is a skateboarding video game developed by Z-Axis and released in 1999 for the Sony PlayStation. A Game Boy Color version was also developed, but was later cancelled...

.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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