Music of New York City

The music of New York City is a diverse and important field in the world of music. It has long been a thriving home for popular genres such as jazz, rock, soul music, R&B, funk, and the urban blues, as well as classical and art music. It is the birthplace of hip-hop, garage house, boogaloo, doo-wop, bebop, punk rock, disco, and new wave. It is also the birthplace of salsa music, born from a fusion of Cuban and Puerto Rican influences that came together in New York's Latino neighborhoods in the 1940s and 1950s. The city's culture, a melting pot of nations from around the world, has produced vital folk music scenes such as Irish-American music and Jewish klezmer. Beginning with the rise of popular sheet music in the early 20th century, New York's Broadway musical theater, and Tin Pan Alley's songcraft, New York has been a major part of the American music industry.

Music author Richie Unterberger has described the New York music scene, and the city itself, as "(i)mmense, richly diverse, flashy, polyethnic, and engaged in a never-ending race for artistic and cosmopolitan supremacy."

Institutions and venues

New York has been a center for the American music industry since the earliest records in the early 20th century. Since then, a number of companies and organizations have set up headquarters in New York, from the Tin Pan Alley publishers and Broadway to modern independent rock and hip-hop labels, non-profit organizations, and others. Many music magazines are or were headquartered in New York, including Blender, Punk, Spin, and Rolling Stone.

Carnegie Hall is one of the most important music venues in the world, especially for classical music; the hall is noted for its excellent acoustics. The venue was named for philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, but fell into disrepair in the 20th century until being renovated between 1983 and 1995. Radio City Music Hall was also a major venue after opening in 1932, and was also recently renovated; it is now a significant architectural attraction as an example of the Art Deco style.

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is the largest performing arts center in the world. The center is home to twelve resident organizations, including the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet, Chamber Music Society, New York City Opera, Juilliard School, Lincoln Center Theater, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. The New York Philharmonic, which performs at Avery Fisher Hall, is the oldest orchestra in the United States, founded in 1842. , Lorin Maazel is the conductor. The Philharmonic has made more than 500 recordings since 1917, and was one of the first to broadcast live performances, beginning in 1922. The New York Philharmonic produced celebrated composers such as George Bristow and Theodore Thomas. Bristow was a fiercely nationalistic composer who left the Philharmonic because he felt it did not glorify American music adequately, a situation he, and later Thomas, attempted to rectify.

Other institutions and organizations in New York include the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York City Ballet, the Jazz Foundation of America and the Louis Armstrong House. Notable venues that have closed include the Aeolian Hall of Rhapsody in Blue fame and the old Metropolitan Opera (demolished in 1967) at 1411 Broadway. The Apollo Theater has long been a place for African American performers to begin their careers; it has such an iconic status that Congress has declared it a National Historic Landmark.

Club influence

The New York club scene is an important part of the city's music scene, the birthplace of many styles of music from disco to punk rock; some of these clubs, such as Studio 54, Max's Kansas City, Mercer Arts Center, ABC No Rio, and CBGB, reached iconic statuses in the United States and the world. New York is home to several major jazz clubs, including Birdland, Sweet Rhythm (formerly Sweet Basil), the Village Vanguard, and the Blue Note, the latter being one of the premier spots for jazz lovers. There was a time—now long gone—when 52nd Street in Manhattan, with its numerous clubs, was one of the epicenters of jazz. Future generations of music venues would retain the prolific elements of this culture. Since transmogrifying the local dance scene (deep house) to form "acid-jazz" in the late 1980s, Groove Academy/Giant Step has launched several major-label bands such as Groove Collective and Nuyorican Soul.

The Greenwich Village folk scene is home to venues such as the long-standing landmark The Bottom Line. New York's rock scene includes clubs such as Irving Plaza, while the city's avant-garde "downtown" scene includes The Kitchen, Roulette, and Knitting Factory. The Latin and world music scene features venues such as S.O.B.'s and the Wetlands Preserve, which closed in 2001.

Additionally, New York hosts the yearly ElectricZoo festival, second only to Miami's Winter Music Conference as a mecca for house and electronic music fans in the United States. It also holds the annual Dance Parade which brings together all types of dance-oriented music from across the world (both traditional and contemporary) in a combined parade down Fifth Avenue.

The NYC Musical Saw Festival has been a summer staple since 2001, bringing musical saw players from around the world to perform diverse types of music on this unique instrument. The festival, organized by Natalia Paruz, holds the Guinness World Record for the largest musical saw ensemble.

Music history

The first music performed in the area that is now New York City was that of the Lenape Native Americans who lived there. However, little is known of these peoples' musical lives. The earliest documented music comes after the foundation of the city (then called New Amsterdam) by Dutch explorers, who controlled the area until the British conquest in 1664. The music of New York's colonial era was primarily British in character, gradually evolving as the United States became independent and developed a distinct culture; the influence of African-American music became very important as the city's African American population increased throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.

By the 1830s, New York was gradually becoming the most important cultural center in the United States, and was a home for many varieties of folk, popular and classical music. Late in the 19th century, many influential conservatories and venues were founded, including the world-famous Metropolitan Opera House and Carnegie Hall. New York's status as a center for musical development continued into the 20th century, leading to the foundation of many companies associated with the American music industry in the city. These companies included sheet music publishers, based around an area called Tin Pan Alley, and later record labels and other organizations and institutions. The rise of the Broadway theatres began in the early part of the century; the songs from Broadways musicals became some of the earliest American popular music, and eventually came to be treated as pop standards.

Early history

As the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, New York was populated by Dutch settlers who left little musical trace behind, excepting some songs such as "Dutch Prayer of Thanksgiving," "Rosa," and "The Little Dustman." Under English rule, sea shanties, open-air singing gardens, sometimes with fireworks, ballads and other Anglo-Irish traditions, became widespread. New York's colonial ballads were often topical, concerning the events of the day and the local gossip. Beginning in 1732, ballads were placed together with a story tying them together, forming a performance genre called the ballad opera, the best-known of which is The Beggar's Opera, first performed in 1752. That same period also saw the first concerts held in New York, and the arrival of William Tuckey, who helped establish church music in the city.

thumb|right|250px|Painting based on The Beggar's Opera, Scene V, William Hogarth, c. 1728

New York's rise as the intellectual and artistic center of the United States occurred in the 1830s. This period, which coincided with an upsurge in American nationalism, saw major growth in choral music, with musical societies being formed in most major cities, like New York; these choral societies remained a fixture of American music throughout the 19th century. Military bands were also common throughout the country, as was singing family troupes such as the Hutchinson Family. Later still, minstrel shows, comic and musical acts performed by whites in blackface, spread across the country. In New York, Italian operas were very popular throughout much of the century.

Classical and art music history

New York's position as a center for European classical music can be traced back to the late 18th- early 19th century. The New York Philharmonic, formed in 1842, did much to help establish the city's reputation. In that same era was organized the short-lived rival to the Philharmonic, the American Academy of Music, founded by Charles Jerome Hopkins (born 1836 in Burlington, Vermont), William Fry, George Bristow, and Charles Steele in 1856. Two of the first major New York composers were William Fry and George Bristow, both of whom were involved in a well-known 1854 controversy over the Philharmonic's programming choices. The controversy consisted of a series of letters published in the Musical World and Times following a poor review of Fry's Santa Claus Symphony. Fry's first letter, responding angrily to the review, claimed that the Philharmonic had played no pieces by American composers, to which Bristow responded that the Philharmonic had played one piece, an overture he had composed. Henry Christian Timm, one of the founders of the Philharmonic, responded by noting a number of recently composed works.

Following Gershwin, the first major composer was Aaron Copland from Brooklyn, who used elements of American folk music, though it remained European in technique and form. His works included the Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (which was well received, earning him comparisons to Stravinsky), the jazz-affected Music for the Theatre, the music for the ballet Appalachian Spring and the Piano Variations. Later, he turned to the ballet and then serial music.

The African American genre of jazz was closely associated with New York by the middle of the 20th century, when a number of avant-garde performers helped created styles such as hard bop and free jazz. Later still, New York was the major American home for the punk rock and new wave movements, and was the scene for the invention of both hip-hop and Latino salsa music. Musicians from New York have also dominated the Jewish-American klezmer scene, the Greenwich Village old-time music revival, and the straight 1960s pop music exemplified by the Brill Building sound.

Pre–Tin Pan Alley

As America emerged out of the Civil War, a prolific sheet music industry emerged in New York City, catering to the growing urban middle class. Piano ownership was widespread in middle-class families, and if one wanted to hear a popular new song or melody, one would buy the sheet music and then perform the piece at home. Beginning in the early 1860s, the pianist and composer John Nelson Pattison (active 1862–1890) published sheet music out of a piano and organ salesroom in Union Square.

Tin Pan Alley

Beginning in the mid 1880s, the music publishers clustered in Union Square were referred to as Tin Pan Alley. This had become the major center for music publishing by the mid-1890s. Tin Pan Alley eventually moved uptown to 28th street. Many professional songwriters lived nearby, churning out songs ready for mainstream audiences during a time that music, like other aspects of American culture, was becoming a national rather than a regional affair.

The songwriters of this era often wrote formulaic songs, many of them sentimental ballads.

<blockquote>(T)hese publishers devised formulas by which songs could be produced with speed and dispatch... Songs were now to be produced from a serviceable matrix, and issued in large quantities: stereotypes for foreign songs, Negro songs, humorous ditties, and, most important of all, sentimental ballads.</blockquote>

Some of the most notable publishers included Willis Woodward, the Witmark house of publishing, Charles K. Harris, and Edward B. Marks and Joseph W. Stern. Stern and Marks began writing together as amateurs in 1894, with "The Little Lost Child"; the song became a hit, selling more than two million copies of its sheet music after its successful promotion as an illustrated song and after it attracted the attention of popular stage performer Della Fox. However, Paul Dresser was, in the words of David Ewen, the "richest contributor of sentimental ballads to Union Square." He was an original composer, less maudlin, less cloyingly sentimental, and less cliché-ridden than his contemporaries.

In addition to the popular, mainstream ballads and other clean-cut songs, some Tin Pan Alley publishers focused on rough songs such as "Drill Ye Tarriers" in 1888, believed to have been written by an unskilled laborer turned stage performer named Thomas F. Casey. Coon songs were another important part of Tin Pan Alley, derived from the watered-down songs of the minstrel show with the "verve and electricity" brought by the "assimilation of the ragtime rhythm." The first popular coon song was "New Coon in Town," introduced in 1883, and was followed by a wave of coon shouters such as Ernest Hogan and May Irwin.

Musical theatre

The early 20th century also saw the growth of Broadway theatre, a group of theatres specializing in musicals. Broadway became on the preeminent locations for musical theater in the world, and produced a body of songs that led Donald Clarke to call the era (ca. 1914 to 1950), the golden age of songwriting. The need to adapt enjoyable songs to the constraints of a theater and a plot enabled and encouraged a growth in songwriting and the rise of composers such as George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern. Most of these songwriters were Jewish, descended from Jews who immigrated from Russia. singer Amy Winehouse's favorite vocalists.

Doo-wop

The sweet multi-part harmonies of doo-wop originated on the street corners of Harlem and Brooklyn. Although other cities such as Philadelphia and Chicago would have strong doo-wop scenes, the sound was nurtured on the streets of New York by early pioneers of the sound such as the Ravens, the Crows, the Chords, and especially the Drifters, who would enjoy a long and very prolific career. By the 1950s, a plethora of groups would hail from New York, including Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers; the Crests, led by Johnny Maestro of the Brooklyn Bridge, which became synonymous with Brooklyn doo-wop; the Rays; the Mystics; and pioneering female groups the Bobbettes and the Chantels, who would influence the girl group sound of the 1960s.

List of notable doo wop groups from New York

The Bobbettes
The Bonnie Sisters
The Brooklyn Bridge
The Cadillacs
The Capris
Cathy Jean and the Roommates
The Chantels
The Chimes
The Chords
The Cleftones
The Crests
The Crows
The Danleers
Dion and the Belmonts
Don and Juan
The Drifters (No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hit with "Save the Last Dance For Me" in 1960), sang "On Broadway"
The Dubs
The Hearts
The Impalas
The Jive Five
Johnnie & Joe
Little Anthony and the Imperials
The Mystics
The Quin-Tones
Randy & the Rainbows
The Rays
The Tokens (No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hit with "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in 1961)

Greenwich Village

Beginning in the 1940s, New York was the center for a roots revival of American folk music. Many New Yorkers, especially young people, became interested in blues, Appalachian folk music, and other roots styles. In Greenwich Village, many of these people gathered; the area became a hotbed of American folk music as well as leftist political activism.

The performers associated with the Greenwich Village scene, many of whom were not originally from New York, had sporadic mainstream success in the 1940s and 1950s; some, such as Pete Seeger and the Almanac Trio, did well, but most were confined to local coffeehouses and other venues. Performers such as Dave Van Ronk and Joan Baez helped expand the scene by appealing to college students. In the early 1960s, Baez was instrumental in introducing the up-and-coming young folk artist Bob Dylan to her audience and he quickly achieved national prominence. By the mid-1960s, folk and rock were merging, with Bob Dylan taking the lead in July 1965, releasing "Like a Rolling Stone," with a revolutionary rock sound for its time, steeped in tawdry New York imagery, followed by an electric performance in late July at the Newport Folk Festival. Dylan plugged an entire generation into the milieu of the singer-songwriter, often writing from an urban, New York point of view. By the mid-to-late 1960s, bands and singer/songwriters began to proliferate the underground New York art and music scene. The release of The Velvet Underground & Nico in 1967, featuring singer-songwriter Lou Reed and collaborator Nico, was described as the "most prophetic rock album ever made" by Rolling Stone in 2003. New York in the mid-to-late 1960s gave birth to the contemporary singer/songwriter, with the urban landscape as a canvass for lyrics in the confessional style of poets like Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. In July 1969, Newsweek magazine's feature story, "The Girls-Letting Go," described the groundbreaking music of Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Lotti Golden, and Melanie as a new breed of female troubadour: "What is common to them are the personalized songs they write, like voyages of self discovery, startling in the impact of their poetry." The work of these early New York-based singer/songwriters, from Laura Nyro's insightful New York Tendaberry, released in 1969, to Lotti Golden's adventurous East Village, Manhattan, diaries on Motor-Cycle, her 1969 debut on Atlantic Records, has served as inspiration to generations of female singer/songwriters in the rock, folk, and jazz traditions. The Guardian in January 2017 paid homage to the female singer/songwriters featured in Newsweek's July 1969 article, in a piece by Laura Barton: "Newsweek published an article under the headline 'The Girls – Letting Go,' charting the burgeoning careers of a group of young musicians it termed 'a new school of talented female troubadours.' They sang about politics, love affairs, the urban landscape, drugs, disappointment, and the life and loneliness of the itinerant performers, subjects that, hitherto, had largely been the preserve of male musicians." New York would see a revived interest in folk and singer/songwriters in the 1980s and 1990s led by artists like Suzanne Vega.

List of notable singer-songwriters and folk artists from New York

Joan Baez
Keith Barbour
Harry Chapin #1 Billboard Hot 100 hit with "Cat's in the Cradle" in '74
Alana Davis
Art Garfunkel
Terry Gilkyson
Arlo Guthrie
Lotti Golden
Richie Havens
Sophie B. Hawkins
Janis Ian
Carole King #1 Hot 100 hit with "It's Too Late" in '71
Melanie #1 Hot 100 hit with "Brand New Key" in '71
David Cassidy
Ingrid Michaelson
Maria Muldaur
Harry Nilsson #1 Hot 100 hit with "Without You" in '72
Laura Nyro
Michael Penn
The Rooftop Singers #1 Hot 100 hit with "Walk Right In" in '63
John Sebastian #1 Hot 100 hit with "Welcome Back" in '76
Carly Simon #1 Hot 100 hit with "You're So Vain" in '73
Suzanne Vega
Peter Yarrow

Electronic dance music

Disco is an up-tempo style of dance music that originated in the early 1970s, with its center in the United States in New York. As discothèques grew more popular later in the decade, they began moving to larger venues as the sound became popularized by artists such as Newark native Gloria Gaynor. Many of these were in New York, including Paradise Garage and Studio 54.

As the disco trend faded, dance clubs continued to have a home in New York into the 1980s in trendy clubs such as Danceteria, remembered perhaps best as the club where arguably dance music's diva, Madonna, began her career. Club music added electronically generated sounds and samples of music such as jazz, blues, and European and Japanese electronic music.

In the early 1980s, house music, a direct descendant of disco, was forged in the underground clubs of Chicago, Detroit, and New York.

Freestyle also originated in New York during the 1980s. A sound characterized by a mixture of Latin music beats and melodies fused with elements of hip-hop and electro, it became popularized by New York natives such as Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam and Brenda K. Starr.

List of notable contemporary R&B and club artists from New York

Alisha
B. B. & Q. Band
Brass Construction
Breakfast Club
Sharon Redd
B. T. Express
Jimmy Castor Bunch
C+C Music Factory (#1 Hot 100 hit with "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" in 1991)
Cameo
Irene Cara (#1 Billboard Hot 100 hit with "Flashdance... What a Feeling" in 1983)
Chic (2 #1 Hot 100 hits, including "Le Freak" in 1978)
Corina
The Cover Girls
Crown Heights Affair
Deee-Lite
David Cassidy
Kat DeLuna
Carol Douglas
D Train
Evelyn "Champagne" King
Fatback Band
Lady Gaga (has had 5 #1 Billboard Hot 100 hits)
Freddie Jackson
LCD Soundsystem
Kashif
Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam (2 #1 Hot 100 hits, including "Head to Toe" in 1987)
Lisette Melendez
Melba Moore
Mtume
Odyssey sang "Native New Yorker" in 1977
Reel 2 Real
Robin S.
Vicki Sue Robinson
Sa-Fire
Seduction
Brenda K. Starr
Sweet Sensation
Lana Del Rey

Latin music

Salsa is a style of Latin music that incorporates multiple styles and variations. It was developed by mid-1960s groups of New York City-area Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants to the United States, such as Machito and Tito Puente, with later variants such as salsa dura. Salsa, along with other Latin American genres, has become extremely popular in New York. Latin dancing is also very popular. Salsa, a music predominantly derived from the Cuban son montuno, was imported back to Latin America where it has become popular over the past 40 years. Salsa aficionados the world over know that the origin of the music is uniquely tied to New York.

The same phenomenon has recently occurred with yet another type of Latin rhythm, bachata. Bachata is dominated by Dominicans, especially Dominicans from New York's Washington Heights neighborhood. From The Bronx came bachata's most popular band Aventura, whose lead singer Romeo Santos embarked on a successful solo career in 2011.

Reggaeton, a popular Latin urban genre originating from Panama and Puerto Rico, is also popular in New York, especially among young Hispanics. Reggaeton artists from New York include Arcángel, De La Ghetto, N.O.R.E., and Vico C.

Hip-hop

thumb|280x280px|[[Juice Crew, pictured in 2016. Top row left to right: DJ Cool V, Marley Marl, Grand Daddy I.U. Bottom row left to right: Kool G Rap, Craig G, Masta Ace, Roxanne Shante, Big Daddy Kane]]

New York gave rise to the creation of hip-hop music and electro in the late 1970s and early 1980s. "Rapper's Delight" is widely regarded as the first hip-hop record to gain widespread popularity in the mainstream. The genre got its start at neighborhood block parties when DJs such as Kool Herc began isolating percussion breaks in funk and R&B songs, eventually rapping while the audience danced. From the late 1970s to about 1984, New York was the only city with a major hip-hop scene, and the demand for records created competing independent record labels, including Profile Records, Sugar Hill Records, Enjoy Records and Tommy Boy Records, pumping out 12" records at a furuious pace due to the popularity of the new genre, the incredible creativity of the early hip-hop producers and artists, as well as the profitability of the new market. Labels were able to issue quality recordings due to the affordability of new technology, primarily the Roland TR-808 drum machine. The first wave of hip-hop records (old-school hip-hop), pomolgated by producers, artists, and writers including Arthur Baker, Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, DJ Kool Herc, Bobby Robinson, Lotti Golden and Spoonie Gee, were electronic, some with rap vocals and some without. The year 1982 was prolific, with seminal recordings like "The Message," "Planet Rock", and "Nunk" exploring social issues, also known as conscious rap, and fusing electro with hip-hop introducing a sci-fi, Afrofuturist perspective. By 1984, hip-hop began to change; new sparse beats and rock samples gave the genre a harder edge, with groups like Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys and producers Russel Simmons and Rick Rubin at the forefront of a new iteration of the genre. Hip-hop's early years saw an ongoing rivalry between the boroughs of New York, with each seeking credit for its rightful contributions to the culture. The original "beef" pitted The Bronx, led by Boogie Down Productions, against Marley Marl's Queens-based Juice Crew.

By the early 1990s, however, West Coast rap from Los Angeles was gaining national fame. In 1992, Dr. Dre's The Chronic became a national hit and made the West Coast the most popular center of hip-hop. However, in 1993, with the release of Black Moon's Enta da Stage and later on Wu-Tang Clan's 36 Chambers in the same year, East Coast hip-hop made a major comeback. The release of Nas's Illmatic and the Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die in 1994 made New York the most popular center of hip-hop once again in a timeframe of just two years. The West Coast never again enjoyed such levels of success as they did in 1992 and 1993. However, the East Coast delivered one classic album after another for the rest of the decade. Most prominent of the releases include Mobb Deep's The Infamous and Hell on Earth, Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt, and DMX's It's Dark and Hell Is Hot. Mase's Harlem World cemented him as the most popular MC in New York in the late 1990s. However, he left the industry to pursue other callings. The East Coast still remains a prominent center of hip-hop in the current scene, but their mainstream appeal has been somewhat taken over by the rappers from the Southern states of the U.S.

Each borough or area of New York City has its fair share of associated hip-hop acts, both commercially successful and underground. KRS-One, Fat Joe, Big Pun, and Slick Rick all grew up in The Bronx, although the latter originated from London, England. Wu-Tang Clan put Staten Island on the hip-hop map, renaming the borough "Shaolin". LL Cool J, Run-DMC, Salt-N-Pepa, Eric B. & Rakim, Black Sheep, A Tribe Called Quest, Akinyele, Ja Rule, 21 Quest, Pharoahe Monch, Nicki Minaj, and 50 Cent are all from Queens. Additionally, the Queensbridge Projects in Queens have been an epicenter of hip-hop, producing the Juice Crew (Marley Marl, MC Shan, Kool G Rap, Roxanne Shante), Mobb Deep, Capone-N-Noreaga, and Nas. In order of appearance, Brooklyn has produced Whodini, Newcleus, Audio Two, Full Force, MC Lyte, Gang Starr, Jeru the Damaja, Masta Ace, Boot Camp Clik, AZ, Busta Rhymes, Foxy Brown, Talib Kweli, Afu-Ra, M.O.P., Shyne, and Siah and Yeshua DapoED. The Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood has been a hotbed for successful hip-hop artists, including Junior M.A.F.I.A. (consisting of the Notorious B.I.G., Lil' Kim, Lil' Cease, Mase, and others), Big Daddy Kane, Jay-Z, Killah Priest, Mos Def, and Joey Badass. Lastly, the island of Manhattan, particularly Harlem, is home to artists such as Kurtis Blow, Doug E. Fresh (an implant form Barbados), Biz Markie, 2 Black 2 Strong, Big L, Immortal Technique, Vast Aire, Azealia Banks, Cam'ron, Mase, Black Rob, Mims, Street P, Dipset, Eyston, Warp 9, and ASAP Rocky.

In modern day, New York City's drill musicians have achieved local and global popularity. Brooklyn drill artists include Pop Smoke, Fivio Foreign, Sheff G, Sleepy Hallow, Bizzy Banks, J.I the Prince of N.Y, Jay Critch and more. Prominent artists of the sample drill style, originating in the Bronx, include Big Yaya, Kay Flock, B-Lovee, and more.

Rock

Since the beginning of the genre, New York has been a vital force in the shaping of rock 'n' roll. DJ Alan Freed, perhaps the most influential force in popularizing rock 'n' roll, broadcast his highly influential show from WINS, which became one of the earliest exclusively rock 'n' roll stations. Early rock 'n' roll sounds such as doo-wop and girl group were nurtured in New York.

List of notable rock artists from New York

Billy Joel
Blondie
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blues Magoos
Blue Öyster Cult
Walter Egan
Lotti Golden
Enon
Every Mother's Son
Gary Lewis & the Playboys
Kiss
Cyndi Lauper (2 #1 Hot 100 hits, like "Time After Time" in 1984)
The Lovin' Spoonful (#1 Billboard Hot 100 hit with "Summer in the City" in 1966)
Interpol
Mountain
Orleans
Patti Smith
Quarters of Change
Ramones
LCD Soundsystem
Lou Reed
Sonic Youth
Spider
Spin Doctors
Steely Dan
Stories
The Strokes
Talking Heads
Television
Vanilla Fudge
The Velvet Underground
The Fleshtones
New York Dolls
White Lion
Winger
Peter Wolf
Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Proto punk, punk, new wave and no wave

New York had the earliest documented punk rock scene. Drawing on local influences such as the Velvet Underground, Richard Hell, and the New York Dolls, punk music developed at clubs such as CBGB and Max's Kansas City. Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Blondie, Suicide, Television, the Fleshtones, and other artsy new wave artists were popular in the mid-to-late 1970s, as bands like the Ramones were establishing the punk rock sound. CBGB and Max's Kansas City opened their doors and became influential venues. No Wave was a short-lived rock movement in New York and raised James Chance, DNA, Glenn Branca, Lydia Lunch, the Contortions, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Mars began experimenting with noise, dissonance and atonality in addition to non-rock styles. Brian Eno-produced No New York compilation, often considered the quintessential testament to the scene. Swans, and later Sonic Youth were famous in the New York punk scene.

Hardcore punk and ska

In the early 1980s, hardcore punk was developing primarily in Southern California and Washington, D.C. The New York hardcore scene was founded by 1981, and bands such as Reagan Youth and Kraut led the initial charge. By 1985, the New York hardcore scene had become inhabited by straight edgers and skinheads, including bands such as Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags, Heart Attack, Youth of Today, the Plasmatics, Warzone, and Murphy's Law. With the collapse of the CBGB hardcore matinees due to constant violence, a more activist DIY scene began to develop around ABC No Rio and the squats of the Lower East Side. New York has been at the center of the United States third wave ska scene. The founders of third wave ska, which drew on British Two-Tone ska, were New York bands such as the Toasters and Urban Blight. In the early 1980s, Toasters singer/guitarist and songwriter Robert 'Bucket' Hingley established Moon Ska Records; the label operated until the late 1990s, giving many ska bands from New York and elsewhere international exposure. Some of the other ska bands to come from the New York scene were Skinnerbox, The Slackers, and Mephiskapheles. Other major hardcore punk bands from New York are Sick of It All, H<sub>2</sub>O, and Madball. There are also ska-jazz bands, such as the New York Ska Jazz Ensemble.

Heavy metal

New York has also contributed to the heavy metal genre, with bands such as Sir Lord Baltimore and Blue Öyster Cult gaining attention from the early 1970s. During the 1980s and 1990s, it was a major center of the East Coast thrash metal scene, which produced the bands Anthrax, Overkill (originally from New Jersey), Nuclear Assault, Toxik and Carnivore. Funk metal groups such as Living Colour and 24-7 Spyz, and alternative metal groups such as Prong and Helmet, also emerged from the growing New York metal scene. Three other major metal bands from New York are Type O Negative, Emmure, and Life of Agony, all from Brooklyn.

In the 1990s and later, New York and its environs developed a small but influential death metal scene. Suffocation, one of the best-known bands to emerge from the scene, earned a good deal of notoriety for their brutal, complex, and uncompromising style. Another long-lived New York death metal group is Immolation, whose innovative use of dissonance helped to establish them as underground favorites. Other bands associated with New York death metal are Mortician and Incantation, the latter being originally from Pennsylvania.