Novelty song
Novelty Song (from Engl. Novelty , "novelty") is a Anglizismus in which pieces of music entertainment music describes that in its sound , arrangement , text or presentation form are regarded as deviation from the standard and especially humorous or nonsense include themes. It is irrelevant whether the song intentionally breaks with conventional and familiar stylistic elements or whether it only became a novelty within a different context.
history
Novelty songs were one of the most important genres of the Tin Pan Alley phase from around 1907 in the USA. In his book on Irving Berlin , Charles Hamm devotes a large section to novelty songs and divides them into urban, musical and ethnic novelty songs; lyrically the novelty song contains amusing or provocative passages. In 1961, Isaac Goldberg speaks of comical ballads that you hear but usually wouldn't sing yourself. The forerunner of today's charts , Your Hitparade , divided music pieces from April 20, 1935 into the categories of ballads, rhythmic ballads and novelty songs.
The latter category included weird songs like Yes! We Have No Bananas by Billy Jones (April 1923; on the banana shortage), the children's hit How Much is That Doggie in the Window? by Patti Page (January 1953), nonsense pieces like Mairzy Doats from the Merry Macs (March 1944) or sound effects like in Quiet Village by Martin Denny (April 1959; jungle noises).
Further examples
The fear of extraterrestrial influences was also a theme in pop music. Thus attacked The Flying Saucer Buchanan & Goodman (August 1956) the widespread belief in flying saucers in the form of - thematically appropriate - Samplings big hits on, Sheb Wooley Purple People Eater (June 1958) is about the one-eyed, one-horned purple people eater, who in a Want to play rock 'n' roll band. Youth problems with parents or teachers led to amusing texts such as in Yakety Yak (June 1958) or Charlie Brown (February 1959) by the Coasters . These two novelty songs showed that these types of songs could well encourage the development of a new style of music.
Comedians like Allan Sherman , Stan Freberg or Peter Sellers were considered authentic interpreters for novelty songs. Peter Sellers recorded the duet Goodness Gracious Me (October 1960) with Sophia Loren about the relationship between an Indian doctor and his English patient. Allan Sherman's Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh (August 1963) was based on the melody of Amilcare Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours and treated the letter from a boy from the fictional holiday camp “Camp Granada” to his parents, in which the little one spoke badly about the weather Food and the supervisors complained. Napoleon XIV surprised everyone with his one-hit wonder They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa! (June 1966), when he is mad because of a runaway dog and is picked up by the asylum transport. Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron von der Royal Guardsmen (November 1966) tells the story of the dog "Snoopy" from the cartoon series The Peanuts , who fights against and defeats Baron von Richthofen .
Weird Al Yankovic is one of the most important parodists in pop culture. In particular, his puns on well-known hits such as Eat It (for Beat It ; March 1984) or Like a Surgeon (for Like a Virgin ; June 1985) were examples of parodic performances within the Novelty songs.
effect
Novelty songs differed from other pieces of music in their arrangement, text, instrumentation or the addition of unusual sound effects . Due to their deviation from the standard of usual pop music, a general public becomes aware of them. This has given many of the hits mentioned great popularity because their funny lyrics made the listeners laugh ; some hits even became million sellers .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Arnold Shaw: Dictionary of American Pop / Rock . Schirmer, New York 1982, ISBN 0-02-872350-3 , p. 263.
- ^ Charles Hamm: Irving Berlin: Early Songs 1907-1911 . AR Editions, Madison 1994, ISBN 0-89579-305-9 , p. 34 ( limited preview in Google book search).
- ^ Isaac Goldberg. Tin Pan Alley . Ungar, New York 1961, p. 214 ( limited preview in Google Book search).