Subject: General Music
lesson:
Jimi Hendrix: Rock’s Trailblazing Innovator and Influential Guitarist
Who was Jimi Hendrix and how did he create his own innovative style in Rock music through the merger of different musical genres?
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Emo: A Short History
How did Emo music emerge from Punk to become its own unique genre, and how has Emo influenced a newer generation of artists and audiences?
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Motown Records: Detroit’s Sound of Success
How did Detroit’s cultural and economic history influence the sound and success of Motown Records?
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The Origins of Disco
What are the cultural, economic, and geographic origins of Disco and how has the genre been presented, remembered, and represented in popular culture?
Student Edition:
ChocQuibTown- Embracing Cultural Identity through Colombian Rap
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Chicana Punk and the Chicano Movement
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Brazilian Music and Culture in the United States
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Lydia Mendoza: Tejano Life and Music on the Mexico/Texas Border
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Westward Expansion and Country Music’s Hispanic Influence
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Mi Gente: Fania Records & New York Salsa Music
Unit Plan:
Latin Music and Culture in U.S. History
Through ten lessons, students will explore different people, music, events, and places that helped shape Latin music and culture in the United States. Students will discover how Latin Music like Salsa, Latin Rock, Tejano, Bossa Nova, Swing, and Chicana Punk reflect the experiences of Latin people living in the...
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Mi Gente: Fania Records & New York Salsa Music
What is Fania Records, and how does it reflect the history of Spanish-speaking Caribbean communities in New York City?
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Brazilian Music and Culture in the United States
What is the influence of Brazilian music and culture in the United States?
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Chicana Punk and the Chicano Movement
What is Chicana Punk, how does it relate to the Chicano Movement, and how did it transform the Punk music scene?
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Intersectionality and Punk Music in the 2020s
What is intersectionality, and how do musicians in the Punk music scene navigate life at different intersections?
Trace It Back:
Miguel
Trace It Back:
Bad Bunny
Trace It Back:
Cardi B
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Lydia Mendoza: Tejano Life and Music on the Mexico/Texas Border
How does Lydia Mendoza’s Tejano music connect to the history of Texas and the influence Mexico has had on that state?
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Mountaintop Removal Mining in Appalachia
What is mountaintop removal, how does it affect the environment and people’s health?
Student Edition:
Music of the Civil Rights Movement
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Latin Music and Puerto Rican Migration to New York City
What is the history behind Puerto Rican migration to New York City in the 1940s and 1950s, and how did Puerto Rican migration affect American Popular Music?
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Music of the Civil Rights Movement
How did music advance the goals and inform the tactics of the Civil Rights Movement?
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Westward Expansion and Country Music’s Hispanic Influence
What was Westward Expansion, and what effect did it have on American Popular music?
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Aguinaldos: Venezuelan Songs for the Holiday Season
What are Aguinaldos, and how do children in Venezuela celebrate the winter holiday season known as La Navidad?
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Production: Conducting Your Life Songs Interview
How do you conduct and record an interview?
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Pre-production: Preparing for Your Life Songs Interview
How do you prepare for a successful and insightful interview?
Student Edition:
What Makes a Great Front Person in Music?
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Music Tells Our Story
What role might music play in a person’s life, identity, and community?
Student Edition:
The Black Origins of Punk
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The Black Origins of Punk
How did the bands X-Ray Spex, Bad Brains, and Death define Punk on their own terms?
Trace It Back:
Mickey Hart
lesson:
Signature Style in Art and Album Covers
How have visual artists worked with musicians without compromising their style?
Trace It Back:
Margo Price
Trace It Back:
ChocQuibTown
Trace It Back:
LADAMA
Student Edition:
Learn Ciranda with LADAMA
Student Edition:
Rap Like ChocQuibTown with LADAMA
Student Edition:
Learn Quitiplás with LADAMA
Unit Plan:
LADAMA: Movement, Music, and Community in South America
LADAMA: Movement, Music, and Community in South America introduces students to the music, dance, and culture of South America in an interactive way. Through four lessons, students learn to sing, dance, and perform the traditional rhythms of selected musical styles in Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil. In addition, they play games...
Student Edition:
Learn Joropo with LADAMA
Student Edition:
Learn Cumbia with LADAMA
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Joropo: Music Inspired by Nature from the High Plains of Venezuela
What is Joropo, and how is it inspired by nature?
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ChocQuibTown: Embracing Cultural Identity through Colombian Rap
How can the music of ChocQuibTown, from the Pacific Coast of Colombia, help students express and celebrate their cultural identity through Rap?
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Quitiplás: Deep Listening and Rhythm Building with Afro-Venezuelan Bamboo Drums From Barlovento
What is Quitiplás, how does it incorporate the natural world, and how is it an example of polyrhythm?
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Ciranda: The Brazilian Music and Dance that Creates Community
What is Ciranda, and how can group singing and dancing help us feel like a part of a community?
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Colombian Cumbia: African, Indigenous, and Spanish Roots of Rhythm
What is Cumbia, and how do you play its traditional rhythms?
Student Edition:
Dolores Huerta: Labor Leader
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Afrofuturism and Flying Africans
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Math with Jackson Browne
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Third-Wave Feminism: Women’s Rights and Music in the 1990s
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Music as a Window to the Past
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Designing Album Covers with Color Theory
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Math with Beyoncé
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Swing Down: Afrofuturism & Flight in the Black Imagination
What is Afrofuturism and what are some of the cultural traditions and historical events that inspired and reinforced it?
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Rhythm as Representation of People and Place
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Funk Upon A Time: The Beginnings of Funk
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“Alright” and the History of Black Protest Songs
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“Glory” and the Continuing Civil Rights Movement
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Business with the Grateful Dead
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The Ethics of “Sampling” in Art and Music: A Classroom Trial
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Business with the Grateful Dead
How did the Grateful Dead’s business practices create a dedicated fan culture and ensure the financial success of the group?
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Going Viral
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Feeling the Vibrations
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Who is Lizzo?
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“Life is Beautiful” with Keb’ Mo’
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Recording the Human Voice
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Math with the Grateful Dead
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Loudspeakers, PA Systems, and the “Wall of Sound”
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Who Is Mavis Staples?
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Who Is Camila Cabello?
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Who Is Ritchie Valens?
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“Lean on Me”: Expressing Gratitude and Care with Music
How does Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me” express gratitude and the importance of mutual care?
Student Edition:
Greta Thunberg, Music, and the Climate Crisis
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Who is Billie Eilish?
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Science and Civics of the Flint Water Crisis
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The Indigenous Roots of Rock and Roll
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The Latin Rhythms of “Despacito”
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The Roots of Hip Hop
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Who Is Prince?
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Who Is Amy Winehouse?
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The Evolution of Sound Recording
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What Is Sampling?
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Drawing To Music
Student Edition:
Design A Distortion Pedal
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Greta Thunberg, Music, and the Climate Crisis
How have musicians helped spread climate activist Greta Thunberg’s message?
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Ritchie Valens (Elementary School Version)
How did Ritchie Valens meld traditional Mexican music and Rock and Roll?
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Loudspeakers, PA Systems, and the “Wall of Sound”
What is a PA system, how does it work, and how were the Grateful Dead pioneers in live sound technology?
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The Original “Going Viral”
Could a musical group “go viral” before the internet?
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Third Wave: Women’s Rights and Music in the 1990s
What was Third Wave Feminism, why did it occur, and how did musicians address some of the movement’s demands?
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Distortion: The Sound of Rock and Roll’s Menacing Spirit
What is distortion, and how did it become a desired guitar effect in Rock and Roll?
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The Guitar: A Musical Transducer
How can the guitar help us understand the scientific principle of transduction?
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100 Years of Dance
Why might people dance, and how have dance trends changed in America since the 1920s?
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Learning Rhythm through Gospel
How can Gospel music help students identify the musical concepts of beat, meter, backbeat, subdivision, and syncopation?
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Hometown Documentaries
How can music help tell the story of your hometown?
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The Latin Rhythms of “Despacito”
What Latin American genres inspired Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s hit song “Despacito”?
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Who is “Us” in P!nk’s “What About Us”?
Who is the ‘us’ in P!nk’s song “What About Us?”
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“See You Again”: How We Mourn with Music
How does music help us remember people we are close to, or those we have lost?
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“Here”: Managing Peer Pressure and Anxiety
In what ways does Alessia Cara’s “Here” defy popular music conventions, and what does the song say about peer pressure in youth culture?
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The Teamwork Behind the Beatles
How did the input of manager Brian Epstein and record producer George Martin help The Beatles develop and refine skills that aided the band in presenting their music and personalities to a mass audience?
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From the Stage to the Studio
What caused The Beatles to cease touring in 1966 and how did the innovative music they then created during their subsequent immersion in the recording studio both reflect and influence the world at that time?
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The Beatles, a New Kind of Star
How did The Beatles establish a new paradigm for the image of "the star," and how did that image support their global success?
lesson:
The Many Roles of a Music Producer
What does a music producer do and in what ways does one hear the sound of a producer’s work in recordings?
lesson:
The Ethics of Sampling
What makes a work of art “original,” and how does the use of “sampling” technology in Hip Hop challenge perceptions of “originality”?
lesson:
The Impact of the Electric Guitar
How did the electrification, amplification and design of the guitar facilitate its emergence as a dominant instrument of popular music?
lesson:
How Records and Radio Shaped American Culture
How did changes in the technology of record manufacturing effect popular music, radio, and the people who consumed both?
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Recording and Producing the Voice
How have singers responded as advances in studio recording techniques have enabled increased technological “perfection”?
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Sound Waves, Analog Synthesis and Popular Culture
How did synthesizers allow musicians to create new sounds and how did those sounds reflect American culture throughout the 20th century?
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“Hound Dog” and 1950 Race Relations
How does the story of “Hound Dog” demonstrate music culture’s racial mixing as it differed from mainstream American life in the 1950s?
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“Twist and Shout” and Post-War Britain
What role did cover songs like “Twist and Shout” play early in the Beatles's career, and how did their experiences growing up in post-WWII Liverpool and performing in Hamburg nightclubs help them to develop as a professional musical ensemble?
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“Blowin’ in the Wind” as a Rallying Cry
How does the song “Blowin’ in the Wind” use poetic devices to communicate an open-ended yet powerful message about the human condition, without ever losing its historical specificity?
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The Gospel Origins of “Chain of Fools”
Essential Question: How did Aretha Franklin’s foundation in Gospel music influence her recording of “Chain of Fools,” helping to establish a Soul sound and bringing black culture into mainstream America?
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Sampling: The Foundation of Hip Hop
How is the re-use and re-purposing of existing music at the heart of the Hip Hop recording experience?
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The Beat as an Object of Celebration and Concern in Segregation-Era America
How has “the beat” been an object of both celebration and concern in the history of popular music?
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Multitracking in the Countercultural 1960s
How did The Beatles’ use of cutting edge recording technology and studio techniques both reflect and shape the counterculture of the 1960s?
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The Evolution of Sound Recording
How did multitrack recording technologies enable musicians to create a form of music that could only be realized in the studio?
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Producing the Sounds of a Changing South
How did the recordings Sam Phillips produced at Sun Records, including Elvis Presley’s early work, reflect trends of urbanization and integration in the 1950s American South?
lesson:
The Birth of the Microphone
How did the development of microphones in the 20th century change the way people make and listen to music?
lesson:
The History of Music Videos
How has the relation between sound and image shifted through the history of recorded music, and how did the rise of MTV bring that relationship to a culmination of sorts?
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Jimi Hendrix: Introducing Hard Rock
In what ways did Jimi Hendrix help create a new "Hard Rock" sound while retaining a connection to the Blues and R&B of his past?
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The Influence of Rhythm and Blues
What did R&B bring to early Rock and Roll, and how was early Rock and Roll different?
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Introducing Glam Rock
How was Glam Rock a reaction to the "seriousness" of popular music at the time?
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Introducing New Wave
What did Punk Rock provide that opened the door for New Wave acts? And what are some among the defining attributes of New Wave?
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The Emergence of Folk Rock
What is Folk music? To what extent did Folk Rock sustain the spirit of Folk music?
lesson:
Dan Penn
How did black artists and white songwriters and musicians interact in the Soul era, and what contributed to that interaction?
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The American Blues in Britain
In what ways did American Blues affect English musicians in the early 1960s?
lesson:
Thematic Lesson: Love Songs
Why is the Pop song such a common medium for expressing feelings about love, and how do individual songs relate to their historical moments?
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The Musical Roots of Doo Wop
How did Doo Wop develop as a musical genre?
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Glam: The Return of the Teenager
How was Glam Rock part of a new teenage culture in the 1970s?
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The Rise of the Electric Guitar
What factors led to the rise of the electric guitar as the dominant symbol of Rock and Roll?
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Bo Diddley: The Grandfather of Hip Hop?
How were Bo Diddley’s recordings an anomaly in relation to 1950s Pop music, and how is his rhythm-driven sound and self-presentation a precursor to Hip Hop style?
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Soul Music and the New Femininity
How did Aretha Franklin represent a new female voice in 1960s popular music?
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Gospel Music and the Birth of Soul
How did Gospel influence American popular music?
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Ritchie Valens
How did Ritchie Valens meld traditional Mexican music and Rock and Roll?
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Chuck Berry
Why is Chuck Berry often considered the most important of the early Rock and Rollers?
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The Roots of Progressive Rock
How did Progressive Rock’s incorporation of classical traditions and countercultural values help to forge a unique Rock genre in the late 1960s?
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The Roots of Country Rock
How did Country Music influence Rock and Roll and the musicians who made it?
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The New York City Underground
How did New York bands interact with the city's art scene to create something new?
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The Musical Roots of the Surf Sound
What is the Surf sound and where did it come from?
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Seventies Soul: The Soundtrack of Turbulent Times
How did changes in the Soul music of the early 1970s reflect broader shifts in American society during that time?
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Folk Music, Rock and Roll Attitude
How did Bob Dylan’s early experiences with Folk and Rock and Roll music influence his songwriting?
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How to Study Rock and Roll
How can teachers help students analyze and understand Rock and Roll?
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The Rise of Disco
How did Disco relate to the sentiments and social movements of the 1970s?
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Mainstream Metal, Parental Advisories, and Censorship
How was Heavy Metal involved in the 1980s controversy surrounding the creation of parental advisories for “offensive” music?
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The Roots of Heavy Metal
What are the musical and cultural roots of Heavy Metal?
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The Emergence of Grunge
What was Grunge and where did it come from?