Five music artists who you may not know have been inspired by global folk or classical music
Art cannot exist without outside influence and throughout history, we have seen this reflected within popular music.
Here, Music News Blitz writer, Darshan Kaur Gill explores five popular music artists who have been influenced by global folk and classical music.
5. Bjork
Bjork is an Icelandic singer-songwriter and composer known for ‘It’s Oh So Quiet’, ‘Hyperballad’, and ‘Venus as a Boy’.
With a career spanning nearly 50 years, Bjork experimented with multiple different sounds and made a name for herself on the international stage through her alternative rock band, The Sugarcubes at age 21.
Since then she has incorporated elements of avant-garde, electronica, and jazz in her work.
She also incorporates her Icelandic identity throughout her discography, with Icelandic culture, folklore and language deeply woven throughout her work.
This can also be seen with Japanese influences throughout her art, something that she said she wanted to present without cliches and with respect to traditional forms of Japanese music evident in songs 'Venus as a Boy’ and ‘Holographic Entrypoint’.
4. Jeff Buckley
Jeff Buckley was an American musician who started his career in the early 1990s, known for his tragic and untimely passing and his only studio album, Grace, released in 1994.
While Buckley referenced many artists as his musical influences, including Nina Simone, Robert Plant, Van Morrison, and Bob Dylan, one artist he revered and influenced his music greatly was Panjabi qawwali singer, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.
Buckley considered Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan his “Elvis” and huge musical influence.
He spoke of the singer’s music often stating that his music “saved his life” and the song ‘Ye Jo Halka Halka Suroor Hai’ helped him through a time of deep depression.
He went on to learn Urdu and perform a cover of ‘Yeh Jo Halka Halka’ in 1993 and met his idol a few years later.
The harmonium, a key instrument in qawwali music, influenced the intro of Buckley’s song ‘Lover, You Should’ve Come Over’.
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3. Led Zeppelin (Jimmy Page and Robert Plant)
The two former members of legendary rock band, Led Zeppelin, have both long been interested in Eastern music and global sounds.
Their exploration of Eastern scales and rhythms is evident in tracks like ‘Kashmir’ and ‘No Quarter’.
With their album No Quarter, the duo reworked Led Zeppelin songs for live performances collaborating with Moroccan musicians and an Egyptian orchestra to create a unique fusion between Western rock and Eastern music and rhythms.
2. Laufey
Laufey is an Icelandic-Chinese singer-songwriter who combines bossa-nova rhythms with classic jazz and relatable pop lyrics.
Best known for songs, ‘Bewitched’, ‘From the Start’, ‘Falling Behind’, and ‘Forget Me Not’, Laufey started her music career at age 15, as a cello soloist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.
Blending traditional Brazilian jazz rhythms with modern bossa nova, and incorporating traditional Icelandic musical traditions, Laufey has managed to create a unique but somewhat familiar sound for herself.
1. The Beatles
The Beatles drew influences from many different sources throughout their time as a band.
Major influences include 1950s American rock ‘n’ roll, R&B and Motown, with the group drawing from artists like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, and Buddy Holly.
Later music from The Beatles incorporated Indian classical music, creating the “raga rock” genre, evidenced in songs ‘Across the Universe’, ‘Norwegian Wood’, and ‘Within You Without You’.
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