- Folk Rock Essentials
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Folk Rock Essentials
Apple Music Classic Rock
Countercultural cross-pollination forged these anthems for uprisings. - Motown Essentials
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Motown Essentials
Apple Music Oldies
Detroit’s hit factory introduced high-drama soul to mainstream pop. - Otis Redding Essentials
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Otis Redding Essentials
Otis Redding debuted on Stax Records in 1962 and died in a plane crash in 1967. In the five years in between, he forever changed popular music—combining raw blues intensity with gospel gravitas and pop sweetness. Songs like the horn-backed, V8-powered "Knock on Wood" defined the hard-driving sound of Southern soul, but Redding was also a masterful balladeer. On "Try a Little Tenderness", he leads by example; he smooths his gruff voice and dances it through the seams of a delicately arranged organ and piano beat, then lets loose for a funky finale.
The raw intensity of the blues meets the sweetness of pop. - ’60s Girl Group Essentials
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’60s Girl Group Essentials
As the '50s gave way to the ’60s, the cross-pollination of rock, pop and R&B blossomed into a wave of outwardly cheery but emotionally layered girl groups who mastered a resilient wall of group vocals. Harmonising through relatable tales of teen turmoil, young ensembles like The Shirelles and The Shangri-Las explored dark, sometimes sensual melodrama within the safe confines of snappy sing-alongs. That said, savvy writer/producers like Phil Spector seized on the marketability of this fresh sound to push out the boundaries of pop arrangements, sweeping humble handclaps and castanets into dense mini-symphonies. Though the sound enjoyed peak success for only a handful of years before the British Invasion, it yielded songs as primitive as The Dixie Cups’ “Iko Iko”—on which a schoolyard-style chant is accompanied by percussion performed on ashtrays and soft-drink bottles—and as polished as The Supremes’ “Baby Love”, a romantic lament couched in the upbeat trappings of lush, widescreen orchestration.
Young women capturing teen turmoil in stirring sing-alongs.